Some hospitals are suspending supplies of gas and air, after it was found to pose health risks to midwives. What can be done to ensure pregnant women still get the help they need?
When Leigh Milner was expecting her first baby, she knew exactly how she wanted her labour to go. Her birth plan included an epidural for the pain and she was hoping, she says ruefully, for “all the drugs”. But that is not how things worked out. Milner, 33, a BBC presenter, ended up giving birth to Theo at Princess Alexandra hospital in Harlow last month with nothing but paracetamol for pain relief, in what she calls a positively “Victorian” experience.
Having been induced at 38 weeks due to pre-eclampsia, a potentially risky pregnancy complication that causes high blood pressure, labour progressed very fast and she soon realised she needed something to help her cope while she waited for her epidural. “The pain was just unbearable, my whole body was shaking – I didn’t know where I was, I was kind of slipping in and out of consciousness,” she says.
