The Maternity Action report in 2018 What Price Safe Motherhood? documents the damaging effects on pregnant migrant women of charging for NHS maternity care. It includes stories of destitute women who were presented with huge unpayable bills (often after pregnancy loss or complications). It starkly documents how the fear of debt and of being reported to the Home Office deters migrant women from seeking care. These are women who have fled here to seek safety from war, perse

I’ve had my eyes opened recently to the reality lived by pregnant, asylum-seeking women in Britain. A year ago I volunteered for a Cardiff-based organisation, Birth Partners, whose aim is to provide a companion during birth for women who have no one to accompany them during birth. Almost all of the women referred to us by the specialist midwife are recently arrived asylum seeking women. As a birth activist, I’m not a midwife or a doula. Most of my experience of childbirth, ap