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Where can you have your baby in Gloucestershire?

1:1 care and current service provision

We know how important it is for you to feel supported, safe, and compassionately cared for during labour. National standards recommend that everyone in established labour receives one-to-one care from a midwife. This level of support is essential in helping you feel supported and well cared for throughout your birth experience.

To maintain this standard of care, we have had to make some temporary changes to our service. Whilst there is a national shortage of midwives, these changes are necessary to ensure that every woman and birthing person receives the personalised, one-to-one support they deserve. We want to reassure you that your wellbeing and safety remains our top priority.

Below, we’ve shared the temporary changes we have made to ensure we can continue to provide high-quality, safe maternity care:

  • Temporary closure of Cheltenham’s Aveta Birth Unit for birth.
  • Temporary closure of six postnatal beds at Stroud Maternity Unit.

The current services and options available:

Stroud Maternity

  • Stroud Maternity Unit is open for birth as well as antenatal (pregnancy) care.
  • Postnatal care continues to be available for 12 hours after birth, then you will be discharged home. If you or your baby needs ongoing postnatal support this will be provided on the Maternity Ward at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.
  • Drop-in service at Stroud Maternity offering feeding support/bathing/general support
  • Signposting to community support services in the Stroud area
  • The community midwifery service in Stroud remains unchanged. You will be offered home visits or the opportunity to attend a postnatal (after birth) clinic run by midwives.
  • Breastfeeding support is available at the Unit.

Gloucestershire Royal Hospital Maternity Services

All services at the Gloucester Birth Unit and the Central Delivery Suite, both in the Women’s Centre at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital (GRH), are unaffected by these temporary changes.

Cheltenham (Aveta) Birth Centre, Cheltenham General Hospital

The Cheltenham Birth Centre is temporarily closed to labour and birth but open for antenatal (pregnancy) appointments.

Home births

We continue to offer planned home births but there may be occasions when we do not have staff available to attend a homebirth, this is usually because we are needing to provide one to one care to women and birthing people that are in labour at the hospital or birth centre.

Your feedback is important to us

We understand that these changes may cause disappointment and could affect your choices, it is important to us that we know and understand how you feel about this. If you have any questions or need any support, please talk to your midwife or contact our hospital patient advice and support (PALS) team…… Patient advice and support

If you would like to share feedback about any part of your care or have ideas about how we can make changes, you can contact our Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP) …. Gloucestershire Maternity and Neonatal Voices

We will continue to work with our MNVP, services users and local organisations to ensure that the voices of our community are heard and considered in all that we do.

If you are pregnant and need to get in contact with us please see our maternity contact details.

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