Last modified on Sun 4 Apr 2021 09.58 EDT
The majority of women who have received bad news about their pregnancy since December were on their own at the time, despite the NHS ordering trusts to allow partners to be present throughout scans, labour and birth, the Guardian can reveal.
An alliance of pregnancy rights campaigners have written to the health secretary, Matt Hancock, urging him to draw up a roadmap for easing visiting restrictions in maternity services.
The letter from the But Not Maternity Alliance – which includes Pregnant Then Screwed, Birthrights and The Fatherhood Institute – states that while progress has been made since NHS England issued guidance in mid-December, “there is still a significant postcode lottery across trusts in England”.
Plea to ease Covid maternity rules as women continue to get bad news alone
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How can women get equality? Strike!
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Inside Covid-19’s “lost year” for women at work The pressures of remote working and economic ruin have hit women hardest. What will the impact of Covid-19 on gender equality be in the long run? Since England’s third coronavirus lockdown started in January, Jennifer has regularly been working until 11pm. A single mother with a child in primary school, the academic and policy expert has faced an excruciating balancing act that has become the norm for many working parents during the Covid-19 pandemic. Between home-schooling, caring for her daughter, and doing her own work, there has been little time for anything else. Pushed to exhaustion, she was “lucky”, she tells me, that her workplace enabled her to take up part-time furlough, topping up her pay from the 80 per cent covered by the government.