Midwife crisis
Sir: All Leah McLaren has to do is wait and see if she still wants a hospital birth after antenatal care from her home-birth midwife (‘Bullied by the NHS’, 28 July). Our helpline is deluged with calls from women who, having experienced a first birth in hospital, have booked a home birth for the second. Towards the end of pregnancy, they are told that the community midwives are fully booked, or they are given a spurious or exaggerated medical reason for going in. I hope she is with a team of midwives who are able to support her eventual choice.
Jean Robinson
President, Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services, Oxford
Health and happiness
Sir: While I can understand your cynicism about the recently published Happiness Index (Leading article, 28 July), there is a wider issue at stake here, which is the need to focus on the mental wellbeing of the population, particularly children and young people.
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