My petrol station birth drama: Bridgnorth maternity unit campaigner reveals her story
A mother leading the fight against the closure of Bridgnorth's maternity unit has told of how she gave birth at a petrol station on the way to hospital.
Bobbie Brown, from Bridgnorth, is heading the fight against the closure of the town's maternity unit, and runs the Facebook group
, which has now got almost 1,000 followers.
Mrs Brown, aged 35, gave birth to first child Phoebe, who is now eight, at the maternity unit.
But she added: "With my son Zak I decided to also have him at Bridgnorth but unfortunately there was a complication and we had to be taken via ambulance to hospital in Shrewsbury. Unfortunately we didn't make it and I gave birth in the ambulance outside the petrol station in Much Wenlock.
"It was a very scary experience, but the midwife who was with me was fantastic."
Fears have been raised because no details have been announced about how rural maternity services such as those at Bridgnorth, Ludlow and Oswestry are to be funded beyond April 2017 when the current funding contract ends.
The financial recovery plan for Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust lists one of the possible changes as converting three midwife led units to birthing centres. These would be open during the day but closed overnight with a midwife on call to open the unit if a woman was in labour.
Mrs Brown added: "Mums-to-be need to have the choice to give birth in a very relaxed safe home environment and all of the MLUs in Shropshire are the perfect place to give birth.
"The way I see it is you can't predict how long a lady's labour will be, what if there's more than one lady that goes into labour, and research does show that ladies do tend to go into labour in the night. "If the midwife on call lives 40 minutes away, what happens if the lady gives birth before the midwife gets to her?"
"The postnatal care you receive after you give birth won't be there anymore because once you've given birth and got the all-clear you go home and won't have support with breast feeding.
"The first few days you have with your baby is the most important, if it is turned into a birthing centre it won't be there.
"Especially new mums that haven't given birth, they like to have the support and feel relaxed."
Earlier this month more than 1,100 people marched through Ludlow in support of theamid fears the town could lose its maternity unit.
