Women feel coerced during maternity care in England, charity says
Women feel put under pressure to have medical procedures such as caesareans during their maternity care, according to a report.The charity Birthrights collated the experiences of 300 people in England who said they had felt or witnessed coercion within a maternity setting.It said caregivers used authoritative language that undermined the idea of women being able to make informed decisions regarding their maternity care.Experiences shared in the report include healthcare professionals telling women they must accept a vaginal examination or they will not be able to be admitted to the birth centre, and women feel put under pressure to accept an induction without it being explained why it was necessary.One woman recounted feeling forced into have a caesarean without having the reasons why it was necessary explained.
“I remember a doctor saying to me: You can choose to have a C-section now or you can wait a few hours and I’ll press that buzzer behind your head and you’ll have one anyway,’” the woman said.Megan Rogerson, a 37-year-old domestic abuse practitioner from Hull, said she had felt forced into having a caesarean.She said it was never explained why she could not have a vaginal birth.“For my second birth, I was all set and approved for a VBAC [vaginal birth after caesarean],” Rogerson said.“But when I went to hospital experiencing Braxton Hicks I was told that I’d be scheduled for a C-section without any conversation as to why.
I was just told that I couldn’t give birth that way.”She added: “I felt like I didn’t have a choice, I felt that I was spoken to like a child doing something wrong.It was a really sort of belittling experience.I was just told we can’t do that rather than it being explained why that was the case.”Hazel Williams, the chief executive of Birthrights, said: “This crucial report documents the rise in coercive practices as a systemic problem across the maternity system, with Black and Brown women and birthing people facing the worst attacks on their human rights, choice and bodily autonomy.
“Women and birthing people are repeatedly being told you are ‘not allowed’ or threatened with children’s services referrals, not given full facts and denied genuine informed choice.Coercion has no place in safe maternity care and must stop now.”According to guidelines from the Nursing and Midwifery Council, women using maternity services should be provided with evidence-based information to make an informed choice and should be able to stop conversations around their care, regardless of their reason for doing so.The law requires clinicians to support pregnant women to make their own informed decisions about their care, and if an individual is coerced to make a particular decision, that legal standard is breached.Dr Alison Wright, the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said: “The RCOG absolutely agrees that coercion and racialised risk profiling have no place in maternity care.
However, we know the extreme pressure maternity services are under is creating barriers to staff having time for training, including on delivering culturally sensitive care, informed choice and consent processes,“Maternity staff need the time and space to have conversations that help them understand what each woman wants for her pregnancy, labour and birth, and how best to provide this safely,Therefore, we must see sustained investment in maternity services and better support for the workforce, so that every woman and family can receive the safe, personalised and equitable care they need and deserve,”NHS England has been approached for comment,
Australian households fear double whammy of rate hikes and higher petrol prices will lead to recession
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London bars shun Margot Robbie’s gin over shellfish allergen concerns
Margot Robbie said she “couldn’t wait” to see the artisan gin brand she had created stocked in her London local. But the willingness of the capital’s venues to fulfil her dream has been seriously compromised by three words on the side of the bottle – “warning: contains molluscs”.The Wuthering Heights star has had to change the recipe of her spirit after top London bars and restaurants rejected it due to allergen concerns, the Guardian can reveal.The drink, Papa Salt, is filtered through oyster shells, which she hoped would evoke the sandy dunes of Australia where she grew up. It means people with a shellfish allergy are advised not to drink it, because though the distilling process of gin removes most shellfish proteins, some can still remain when it is made with oysters
Close Brothers banking group to cut 600 jobs and roll out AI ‘at pace’
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Starbucks shareholders push to oust board members over stalled union talks
Starbucks shareholders are pushing to remove two board members at the company who they argue have contributed to stalling the coffee chain’s long-fought-over union drive.The SOC Investment Group, Trillium Asset Management, Merseyside Pension Fund, the non-profit Shareholder Association for Research and Education (Share), and the New York state and New York City comptrollers wrote a letter to Starbucks shareholders to vote “no” on the re-election of board members Jørgen Vig Knudstorp and Beth Ford at Starbucks’s annual shareholders meeting on 25 March.More than 680 Starbucks stores have voted to form unions since the barista-led organizing campaign started in 2021. The union has reached 34 tentative agreements with Starbucks, but the company has not reached a single final agreement.Starbucks workers began an unfair labor practice strike at the coffee chain in November 2025, escalating up to the holidays in December 2025 with several thousand workers on strike
‘Very damaging’: how the Iran war is hitting energy-intensive industries
In its 160-year history, Somers Forge’s furnaces in the Black Country have cast steel columns for the Bank of England, part of the anchor for the Titanic and – more recently – propeller shafts for Britain’s nuclear submarines.The economic fallout from the Iran conflict is the latest of many geopolitical headaches the family-owned forge has endured, but it is already “very damaging”, said Tammy Inglis, the Somers finance director.Energy was about a fifth of manufacturing costs at the forge, which employs 140 people in Halesowen, before the conflict began, but that proportion is now rising. “Everybody just battens down the hatches and spends what they absolutely need to spend,” said Inglis. “You’re in survival mode
Chris Bowen declares rush on jerry cans ‘un-Australian’ as he urges end to panic buying of petrol
Chris Bowen has insisted the country’s fuel supply is yet to be affected by the war in the Middle East while criticising a rush to buy jerry cans to fill up with petrol as “un-Australian”.The energy minister made the comments after an emergency meeting with major fuel suppliers and retailers that was convened by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to demand explanations for the recent surge in petrol prices.Australian fuel prices have soared amid a 40% rise in global oil prices in the past fortnight, in response to the Middle East conflict and closure of the strait of Hormuz, a crucial shipping channel largely controlled by Iran.The government has said it was concerned some retailers were price gouging and that panic buying has exacerbated the situation. Some regional retailers have also run out of fuel in recent days
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