Subscriptions
Read our Monthly Magazine
And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system
An increasing number of women who died between 2020-2022 during pregnancy or up to six weeks afterwards in the UK were known to social services, according to data released on Thursday.
This group makes up 22% of the 275 deaths reported, according to the MBRAACE report, and has risen for the past five years. In 2012-2014, the figure was 12%.
During the same period, a further 329 women died between six weeks and one year after the end of pregnancy, the report found, and rates of maternal deaths have “increased significantly, even when deaths due to COVID-19 are excluded”. While 13.56 women per 100,000 died during pregnancy or up to six weeks after, this risk doubled for women in the most deprived areas, and tripled for Black women.
Birth Companions, a charity that supports women from disadvantaged backgrounds, told Byline Times the figures are “shocking” and can no longer be ignored.
“Maternal suicide is still the leading direct cause of death between six weeks and a year after birth, and past MBRRACE reports have highlighted the fact that a large proportion of the women who died by suicide or because of substance use were at risk of having their baby removed, or dealing with the trauma of that removal,” Kirsty Kitchen, Birth Companions, head of policy said.
With the number of looked-after children in England at a record high – 83,840 as of 31 March 2023 – experts warn that these statistics will keep rising until mothers are better supported to keep their children.
“At Birth Companions we have been campaigning for improvements in the care of women who experience social care involvement in pregnancy and early motherhood for many years,” Kitchen explained.
Yet their needs are still largely absent from health and social care policy, and they are still struggling to access mental health services. Women are navigating one of the most traumatic experiences imaginable, alone. That has to change
Kirsty Kitchen, Birth Companions
Almost half of the women whose children are taken into care are care-experienced themselves, and many have the ‘toxic trio’ – professionals’ morbid-moniker for domestic abuse, substance abuse and mental illness.
Child removal escalates these issues. Just over one in 10 of the women who die by suicide, and six in 10 who die through substance misuse, have had a child removed, or are subject to ongoing care proceedings.
“I know women who’ve had seven children taken off them,” says Helen*, 39, who’s also had children taken out of her care. “They self-destruct because they think they’ve let their kids down.”
After a judge decides to remove a child from their mother’s care, she’s often left without support and struggles to hold it together.
“I’ve walked people to local drug and alcohol services to make sure they go to appointments,” says Natalie Prowse, senior lecturer in law at the University of Huddersfield.
“Parents always say they need their child back first, that they’re drinking alcohol or taking drugs because they haven’t got their child with them,” the former solicitor continued.
The Service Desert
It’s unclear who should be responsible for supporting women at risk of, or following, child removal. Councils are only legally obliged to offer short-term counselling to the birth parents of children who are adopted.
Dwindling budgets and increased demand for adult services are creating a vacuum of support, says Amy Van Zyl, chief executive of Women’s Reform, an organisation in Newcastle for women who’ve had, or are at risk of having, children removed.
“Social workers aren’t bad people,” she says, “but when a child is at risk in the family home, because of vulnerabilities perceived to be presented by the mother, and there are no support services available, what else can they do but remove children?”
Helen, whose first child was taken into care after she became addicted to heroin aged 15, has watched support dwindle around her community in Newcastle.
“Social workers used to get to know a family and do more intense work, but it’s massively changed,” she says.
Any available support isn’t often designed with these women in mind. Local authority drug and alcohol services aren’t generally tailored for women – especially those with complex trauma, says Sheena Web, consultant clinical psychologist specialising in families with complex needs.
“Many professionals just signpost women to services without understanding the practical difficulties they may face getting to the venue,” she says
Helen says women are judged harshly by professionals and service users in drug and alcohol services.
“Even in women’s groups, women are fearful to share what’s gone on with them,” she says. “But it’s much harder to recover if you’re not open and honest.”
Many housing and mental health services require people to be teetotal. But this is based on outdated Nice guidelines stating that professionals should treat a person’s substance abuse before PTSD. The newer edition says people shouldn’t be automatically excluded from therapy just because of a substance abuse issue.
“When you’ve got people supporting you, you feel like you can do it, but when you’re suddenly dropped from a service, it feels like you’re at square one again,” says Tia*, a member of Birth Companions’ Lived Experience Team, who had her children taken from her care six years ago.
I was stuck in a relationship and didn’t know how to get out. I needed support, but they took my kids away. My kids didn’t go through half of what I went through – they were looked after so well
Tia, Birth Companions’ Lived Experience Team
When deciding whether a child should be removed, a judge sees lots of evidence regarding the challenges preventing a mum from looking after her child appropriately, says Naomi Delap, director of Birth Companions, but “it’s used to justify why she can’t have her child in her care, not to make sure she gets the support she needs”.
A Recurring Theme
One in four women in England and Wales with a child in care risk going through subsequent care proceedings with other children – referred to as ‘recurrent cases’. Over the last decade, recurrent cases have gone from a ‘national problem with no name’ to an increasing concern among professionals.
Suzie* has six children in care and is pregnant with her seventh. A few years ago, she spent three months in hospital after her partner attacked her. The 40-year-old turned to alcohol and drugs to cope with her children going into care, including two sons taken from her when they were five days old.
Suzie’s in a refuge in the northeast of England, receiving counselling with the hope she can keep this baby. That, she says, is the only support she’s been offered since having her first child at 19, aside from six months in a mother-and-baby unit.
I was a victim of domestic violence, and then a victim again when social services took my children away because of it
Suzie
Breaking this cycle requires a joint national health and social care pathway for women at risk of having a baby removed, or who are separated from their baby soon after birth, Kitchen says.
“We are involved in driving forward improvements in care already, through our own services and through work to shape others. But we need the Government and the NHS to play their part too. Without urgent and coordinated action on these and other inequities, more women will die avoidable deaths,” she says.