Pregnancy: Ethnic Groups

Question

On 15 June, the Chief Midwifery Officer, Prof Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent and the National Clinical Director for Maternity and Women’s Health, Matthew Jolly, wrote to Local Maternity Systems to ask them to take four specific actions, which should minimise the additional risk of COVID-19 for black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) women and their babies by:

- Co-producing an operational policy to improve support ensuring clinicians have a lower threshold to review, admit and consider multidisciplinary escalation in women from a BAME background;

- Reaching out and reassuring pregnant BAME women with tailored communications. NHS England and NHS Improvement have produced a communications toolkit including, an animation, posters and information leaflets in 11 languages;

- Ensuring maternity staff discuss vitamins, supplements and nutrition in pregnancy; and

- Ensuring accurate recording of ethnicity data.