A RISING birth rate, more caesarean sections, obesity and striking staff are just some of the issues Oxford’s Lesley Page faces as President of the Royal College of Midwives.

Her dedication to the profession that dates back to her qualification in 1966 has seen her this month awarded a CBE by the Duke of Cambridge, Prince William, whose wife is expecting their second child in April.

The North Oxford resident, 70, said of this month’s honour at Windsor Castle: “He referred to Kate’s pregnancy, talked about how I had become a midwife and what has changed.

“He jokingly said I could come and help out and I said ‘of course I would love to’. He was very personable.”

Her honour, for services to midwifery, “lifts the profile of the profession” in a country where support is already high, shown with “tremendous” public support for the RCM’s first ever strike this month over pay.

Yet she said: “Maternity policy in the UK is the most progressive in the world.

“Women-centered care and women having a choice is still the basis of policy for many services.

“Oxfordshire has a really good service, it has a really good community base, some of the old community hospitals like Chipping Norton and Wantage still have maternity services.”

From 1974 to 1986 she worked in Canada to pilot new ways of working in an era when midwifery was technically “illegal” and only doctors could deliver newborns.

Oxford Mail:

Staff on strike outside Horton General Hospital, Banbury, earlier this month

Then, from 1986 to 1991, she was director of midwifery at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital where “my key interest was driving continuity of care so women have a midwife they know during the pregnancy, labour, birth and afterwards”.

This came out of concerns that the “medicalising” of pregnancy was leading to “fragmented” care., “It sounds obvious but it was really radical. The woman should be at the centre of her care and make decisions.”

Despite considering herself “quite infertile”, after adopting a boy and girl Mrs Page found it a “real surprise” to give birth to David aged 46.

She said: “I don’t think you have to have children to be a good midwife but it certainly gave me a more practical understanding than before.”

The pay-related strike aside, she said of national policy: “We have had progress but there are some problems.”

Yet she said “the thing that concerns me more than anything” is a 25 per cent surge in the UK of caesarean sections.

She said: “I think the threshold for caesarean sections was reduced.

“It is not often the choice of women, it is just we have started to do caesarean sections a bit more readily.”

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