Last year a group of incredible women came together at Liverpool Lighthouse to make world-changing theatre. The Best for Baby Too Revolution was a theatre piece, created by lived-experience Creative Influencers, women with experience of pregnancy and perinatal care in the NHS while in the asylum system.
Safety in maternity care is the number one NHS priority, following recent statistics and scandals that point to women and babies experiencing unnecessary deaths and injuries throughout England while under NHS care.
Of particular concern is that women from ethnically diverse backgrounds, particularly Black women are at much higher risk of devastating outcomes. Although this data is no longer collected, past evidence points to the experience of women within the asylum system making a significant contribution to this shocking data. However, significantly, many NHS professionals involved in maternity receive no training whatever on caring for women in the immigration system.
Best for Baby Too is an NHS-led collaborative in Liverpool that is seeking to address the inequalities we are seeing for ethnically diverse and socioeconomically disadvantaged women when it comes to maternity care. The Best for Baby Too Revolution was a challenging, transformative work produced by women with experience pregnancy in the asylum system that seeks not just to educate but to capture hearts and minds and bring solutions, through raising awareness and improving the understanding of professionals of the particular risks and circumstances of women in the asylum system.
The work was performed at various venues, including here at Liverpool Lighthouse and at the Liverpool Women’s Hospital for health and social care professionals. The impact was so great that the NHS and the National Lottery have funded a film to be produced to be used in training for midwives and other maternity care professionals.
Over the past months, the Creative Influencers have been at work across Liverpool filming at locations including on an Arriva bus, at the Liverpool Women’s, in midwifery training facilities at University’s and elsewhere. The film and educational package that supports it will be launched to an invited audience of stakeholders, NHS leaders and supporters on September 12th at Liverpool Lighthouse.
Liverpool, a City of Sanctuary, have committed all training providers to using the film and training package in training for all midwives. We hope to see this training rolled out across the country in both midwife training and professional development for all maternity health and care professionals.
Led by our inspirational Creative Influencers we believe there is hope for real change. The goal is nothing less than revolution in maternity care for women involved in the immigration system – saving the lives of mothers and their babies.
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