Authors:
- Dr Edward Bayliss, ST7 Anaesthetics, South East London School of Anaesthesia
- Dr Samantha Black, Consultant Anaesthetist and RCoA Patient Information Lead
- Dr Gemma Crossingham, Consultant Anaesthetist and OAA Trustee
Ensuring access to timely and clear information helps empower women to make informed choices about pain relief and anaesthesia during childbirth.
Over the last 10 years, both the Ockenden (2022) and Kirkup (2015) reviews highlighted a pattern of repeated failures in communication and a lack of clear information for families. This often left women without timely, understandable explanations of their care options. Sadly, it undermined the informed decision-making process in labour, contributing to distress and harm when births didn’t go as planned.
Here at the College, our Raising the standards guidance recommends that every maternity unit provide anaesthetist-approved information about neuraxial analgesia and anaesthesia services in early pregnancy. It also advises units to measure the percentage of women receiving this information in the early antenatal period. This underpins the organisational expectation that such material should be available before labour, not just at the point of delivery.