Closets and cocktails: How fear shaped queer spaces in the UK
Historically, gay bars and nightclubs have been safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people, a space where the lights are dark, their fears appeased, often with the help of alcohol.
“A lot of our spaces began life as pubs, as nightclubs, because there was no other place to go, really,” says CJ De Barra, a non-binary, Irish, neurodivergent author, journalist and historian.
CJ, originally from West Cork but now lives in Nottingham, refers to themself as an accidental historian – not a trained one. They credit their 20-year journalistic career in helping them collect Nottingham’s diverse queer history.
Their work which is stored on the Notts Queer History Archive, consists of over 170 interviews spanning three years.
"I've interviewed some incredible people," says CJ. “From gay men in the sixties, trans activists in the seventies, all the way up to the lesbians of the 2020s – I’ve kept it really open. If you’ve experienced any of Nottingham’s LGBT scene, that’s it – regardless of what your gender or sexuality is.”
CJ documents the Notts Queer History archive on Instagram, with a separate page dedicated solely to the archive.
CJ believes historically, pubs and clubs that were open to queer communities weren’t as bold and brazen as they are today.
“There was no giant, great, big, rainbow flag out the front of a bar that said 'This is where you go'," they say.
“It was all word of mouth. You’d have a signifier that you were part of the community – you would rely on someone else to tell you where to go.”
Usually, CJ says, these places would be a back room, a side room, a pub or a club, with a manager or landlord who was either sympathetic to the queer community or recognised the fact that these were people with money, and they had nowhere to spend it.
They believe that this was the reason the LGBTQ+ community got so accustomed to having bars and nightclubs be the spaces that they met in. “That never went away over the years, because there were so many [failed] attempts at getting LGBT community centres – certainly in the case of Nottingham – up and off the ground," they say.
“An attempt ran from the mid-eighties to about 2005, where the community got as far as having a building and renovating it, only to realise that it wasn’t viable, eventually dropping it.”
CJ believes this is one of the reasons the community hasn’t gotten out of the nightclub and drinking culture embedded into the lives of queer individuals. “If you are in that setting, you are very much exposed to, and at the mercy of, the alcohol industry – because you have to buy something to stay,” they say.
The author also believes the drinking culture in the UK and in Ireland is largely inspired by the way the two countries interact with alcohol. As an Irish person growing up in a rural area of Cork, CJ was isolated in their queerness and drinking gave them the Dutch courage they needed.
They also spoke to a lot of people who mentioned that they had to do several laps of the street where the gay bar or establishment existed, just because they were too scared to go in.
“I remember going to my first pub, which was Taboo in Cork – it took me several attempts to go in as I was alone, as I didn’t know anyone else who was gay to go in with me," says CJ. "I would have felt so much more confident had that been the case.”
CJ believes that alcohol is being pushed on queer individuals even more now, with Big Alcohol sponsoring Pride events and other LGBTQ+ spaces – targeting people who might feel nervous or shy at these events.
They say: "In that moment, a pressure to drink, just to take the edge off, is present, and that is the alcoholic shadow that looms over the queer community."
Mum thought she would die in ‘horror movie’ birth
A woman who described the birth of her daughter as a “horror movie” after she watched herself being cut open is now too scared to have another baby.
Bethanie Tuff, 26, who says she has been left with PTSD after she was left in pain and vomiting black fluid for hours in hospital, said she needed therapy to help her recover from the trauma.
The former healthcare assistant from the north of England, was 36 weeks pregnant when she was admitted to hospital to have her baby in November 2022.
Bethanie had gestational diabetes and was told that she would have to be put on a drip to induce labour as her baby was so big. But her body reacted badly and she into uterine hyperstimulation, causing excessive and sustained contractions.
“It was so painful. I wasn't progressing but they didn’t want to stop the drip so I endured it for hours," Bethanie says. “The midwife was supposed to be in the room with me at all times but she kept disappearing.”
Eventually Bethanie made the decision to have a C-section. She was given an epidural and left for a further five hours before being taken into the theatre. To her horror Bethanie could see her own reflection in the metallic lights above her and not long afterwards the epidural started to wear off.
“I started screaming because I could feel everything," says Bethanie. "But they didn’t believe me. They [the medical staff] were very short with me.
“It felt like I was in a Saw movie, laid there, seeing myself getting cut open with no anaesthetic.”
At the point her daughter, Lena, was delivered Bethanie began haemorrhaging. She was only able to hold her new baby girl, Lena, for seconds before being placed under general anaesthetic.
“When I woke up I was covered in blood," says Bethanie. "My partner, Filip, had to help me wash.”
A few hours later, hospital staff told Bethanie she had to 'get walking' and her catheter needed to be removed.
“I told them I didn’t feel ready," she says. "With my background in healthcare I knew that they shouldn't have taken it out yet, but they weren’t listening to me. They put in five catheters altogether because they kept taking them out before I was ready.”
Two days after giving birth Bethanie started vomiting black fluid. “Filip kept going to tell the midwives and nobody was listening or doing anything about it," she says. “When I eventually went for a CT scan they found that my bowels weren’t working properly and I had to have tubes inserted to drain the fluid.
“I literally thought I was going to die. The professionals around weren’t compassionate or reassuring, and the whole time I was petrified."
A week after Bethanie was first admitted to hospital, despite being unable to walk, staff told her she was ready to go home.
Bethanie claims this was down to the fact the maternity ward was understaffed.
"The midwives would even say ‘it’s impossible to do our jobs right now’,” says Bethanie.
The new mum spent the next six months unable to walk more than a few metres at a time. She was in and out of hospital, and prescribed several different antibiotics to treat infections to her wound.
“At one point they wanted to readmit me but I was so scared of the hospital I refused," says Bethanie. "I didn’t want to go back there.”
When the community midwife visited Bethanie at her house shortly after the birth, she advised her to get therapy, which the NHS offers to people who have had traumatic births.
Bethanie hoped she would get over the trauma on her own so only self-referred herself after two years.
"It got to the stage where I was struggling to live every day not knowing how to deal with it."
The 12 therapy sessions helped Bethanie and she is now able to talk about her experience without crying.
Bethanie arranged a debrief with the hospital to try and understand what went wrong. Initially she says the hospital claimed they couldn’t find her notes, and during the eventual meeting she felt "everything she said was contradicted".
“It’s put me off having another baby”, says Bethanie. “I’d like to have one but I’m absolutely petrified."
Bethanie has considered legal action and making a formal against but was worried about the effect it could have on her mental health.
“I don’t want to keep reliving my experiences over and over again, possibly for no outcome,” she says.
Dr Kim Thomas, CEO of the Birth Trauma Association, says: “Hospitals will often fight legal cases aggressively and do everything they can to make it difficult for you. It can be quite brutalising.”
According to Dr Thomas it is common for hospitals to claim to have lost notes, among other "dirty tricks".
She authored the 2024 report of the parliamentary inquiry into birth trauma, which found “a pattern of really poor care” and repeats many of Bethanie's experiences.
“Women often had an idea that something had gone wrong in the labour but were ridiculed or had their concerns dismissed", says Dr Thomas.
“We need a change in the culture so that women are being listened to. There needs to be better teamwork amongst midwives and obstetricians, and consent should be properly obtained before carrying out a procedure. A lot of women tell us that even after a traumatic birth, there's no compassion from the hospital staff.”
Research suggests that four to five per cent of people develop PTSD after giving birth, equivalent to approximately 25,000-30,000 every year in the UK. Studies have also found that as many as one in three people find some aspects of their birth experience traumatic.
Despite its prevalence, people with birth trauma so often feel alone, said Dr Thomas.
“There's this kind of assumption that birth is a happy thing and that as long as your baby's born healthy you shouldn't complain," says Dr Thomas. "Nobody's listening to you, nobody's nurturing you, nobody's taking care of you. And all you want is for somebody to say ‘I'm really sorry that happened to you’, which isn’t a difficult thing to say but it’s very rare for women to hear that.
“We have women coming to us who gave birth 40 years ago and they're still traumatized by what happened. So if you don't get treatment or support it might never go away.”
The Birth Trauma Association offers support, including WhatsApp groups and email-based peer support for people who may struggle face-to-face.
Earlier this week, former MP Theo Clarke publisher her memoir ‘Breaking the Taboo: Why We Need To Talk About Birth Trauma’.
On the brighter side, Dr Thomas says that people generally, though not without exception, have good experiences with the NHS therapy.
“They're going from a point where their PTSD has completely taken over their lives, to a point where they're almost back to their normal selves."
But accessing help isn’t always easy, according to Dr Thomas. She said there are long waiting lists, and sometimes people who need therapy don’t meet the threshold. It can also be difficult for people struggling with their mental health to take that first step.
The sex industry should be abolished: a radical feminist perspective
A radical feminist is calling for the complete abolition of sex work following years research revealing how men talk about the women they buy sex from.
Elly Arrow, an activist, never set out to campaign against the sex industry but her perspective hardened after hearing the derogatory and explicit language used against women.
Her involvement with the Invisible Men Project exposesd her to the attitudes and language of men who create the demand for sex work.
“What they say about women, how they talk, it’s quite disturbing stuff that I find hard to justify," said Arrow. The Invisible Men Project unearths that men speak of girls as young as 13 and describe women as, “fresh meat”, “prey” and “submissive”.
Arrow said: “Once you learn all these different things, it’s like you feel like you have to do something about it."
In April this year, the Crime and Policing Bill proposed the implementation of a Nordic-style model in the UK, which decriminalises the sale of sex but criminalises the purchase of it. It aims to reduce the demand and shift the legal burden away from sex workers.
“Society really, really despises women in the sex industry," said Arrow, who has her own YouTube channel. She feels the Nordic model challenges that rhetoric and acknowledges that the women have nothing to be blamed for, "They’re just trying to make ends meet," she said.
Arrow's work has exposed her to the experiences of sex work under a legalised model. Although she believes at the minimum, a Nordic-model should be introduced, Arrow said: “An abyss opens when you get into what happens in a legal brothel.
"The idea of a safe, sane, consensual sex industry is not possible in my opinion.”
Arrow acknowledges the need for reform and revision of areas of the Nordic model, arguing it does not provide a stable income or a functional marketplace for those currently working.
Though Arrow said: “If people are looking for a stable market where every woman makes a good liveable income, it doesn’t exist."
She is co-founder of the Red Light Expose, a podcast run by a group of exploitation survivors and allies which highlights the issues inside the sex work industry. She has worked with sex workers in Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Australia.
In Germany, sex work is legal and regulated by the government. Sex workers must register and obtain a license to work but Arrow believes the system fails to challenge the deeper structures of power and control in the industry.
The same concerns apply to online sex work. The rise of OnlyFans, and other digital or custom pornography that is often described as safer. Often it is viewed as a form of empowerment through self-employment and financial independence.
However, Arrow feels it is important to acknowledge the danger in a space that has been perpetuated as safe or glamourised by popular culture.
She explained the sex industry used to be populated by impoverished women and marginalised women but new forms of online sex work are even starting to endanger middle class women.
Arrow, who has concerns about Only Fans, live camming, and custom pornography, said: “You think it’s just you and a camera. No one can hurt you. And that’s absolutely not true.”
She described it as “personalised pornography”, where men now expect direct access and bespoke content which can be accompanied by parasocial relationships that border on obsession and danger.
Elly said that women in the sex industry use aliases not only because they are subject to public shame and stigma but also because there’s so many stalkers.
She said: “So many men think, “I’ve poured this money into you, why won’t you meet me in person?”
‘It was devastating to make a trip to hospital’: three women open up about their home birth experiences
Jennie Nash wanted to have a home birth. She had set up a birthing pool and made all the preparations. Sadly, she didn’t get the experience she had wanted.
“Unfortunately, they were understaffed, and we couldn’t get a midwife to actually come. It was devastating to make a trip to hospital,” says Jennie, 39 (pictured above).
The mum-of-one, from Leeds, said it meant her labour was probably longer than it would’ve been if she could have stayed at home.
“It was really upsetting when we got home and walked past the room where we had the pool and the fairy lights and the music set up, after having quite a long, complicated birth. It was hard to see what could have been,” says Jennie.
Jennie explained that one of her friends, who lives a couple of streets away from her had a home birth on the Monday, two days before she went into labour. “I wonder if the time of year I gave birth was particularly busy for the midwives and that’s why we couldn’t get one,” she says.
She says she decided to have a home birth because hospitals make her feel uncomfortable and she wanted to be in an environment that was natural.
Jennie said her baby was in an awkward position so she thinks that may be why her birth was longer than expected. When she initially entered the hospital, she had to wait in the corridor while she was having contractions as there wasn’t a spot available in the maternity assessment unit.
“Then I was moved into a west ward and there was somebody having a suspected miscarriage in one bed, then someone else being violently sick across from me on the same ward. It was quite different from the calm environment we had created at home.
“It changed the way my body reacted. My adrenaline started kicking in, rather than the oxytocin that you need to make you dilated. It took a long time to get painkillers as well. It just wasn’t what I wanted,” she says.
Jennie explained how she didn’t have one midwife with her throughout her birth, she thinks she was in labour through three different shifts in hospital. She says, “When I was moved onto a hormone drip, another midwife started her shift. Then another midwife and a student midwife. At the last part of your labour, having a different face changes the atmosphere a lot.
"It’s a personal thing, you develop a bit of a relationship with one midwife, and then for it to switch felt quite odd. The midwives were saying they rarely get to see the full birth.”
She says she felt a lack of autonomy in hospital and that she was pressured into having medication and pushed to do things she didn’t want to.
“I think pretty much everything that I didn’t want to do ended up being quite close to an option. Had my partner not advocated for me so well, I think it would have been really easy for it to have gone down a path that I didn’t want.
“It’s constantly a battle, rather than it being your choice,” she says.
About 2% of births are home births in the UK. Yet, Jennie thinks that they are becoming more popular and awareness is increasing. “For the pregnant people I knew, three out of 10 of them were either considering it or actually had a home birth. Unfortunately, only one of them actually managed to have a home birth. Everyone else was in the same situation as me where they couldn’t access a midwife.”
Hayley Cook, 33, from Leeds, had a very different experience for her second birth. She was able to have a home birth.
“My home birth was so healing and empowering. It was one of the best days of my life and feels like such a huge achievement. I felt really in control, supported, safe and loved.”
She did, however, have her first birth in hospital during the November 2020 Covid lockdown. “I had a tough experience; it felt very out of control. I was encouraged to have an induction which led to further interventions I really wanted to try and avoid.
“I wasn’t aware at the time of the rollercoaster this was putting me on. I really struggled to understand what happened and afterwards I was very upset by the experience.”
She says the main reason she opted for a home birth was because of her experience with her first birth. “I realised during that second pregnancy that home birth have me back everything I needed. The more I read the more I understood what happened negatively the first time around and what I could do to avoid the same happening again. I found the solution that fitted me best,” she says.
Hayley explains she had total autonomy throughout her home birth. She choose where to move around her house and she wasn’t made to push and felt she was allowed to follow her body.
She knows people who have been unable to have home births due to midwives not being able to attend due to staffing issues. She says, “I was concerned about this myself when I was pregnant. It makes me sad that services being suspended mean somebody could miss the opportunity to experience birth the way they want.”
Natalie Young, 34, a banking consultant from Leeds, had her first two births in hospital and her third at home.
“It was amazing and so much more straightforward than I ever could have imagined. It was such an intimate experience that I only wish I had experienced it with my other children too,” she says.
She says she was totally in control of what happened and her husband helped with this. “I wanted to have the first hour in the water [birth pool] to breastfeed, have skin to skin and relax after the birth. I did all of that and it felt so special and amazing. Just having that time to look at him [the baby] and him look back at me for us to take each other in was just beautiful. My favourite moment of my birth.”
Natalie says it was a huge contrast to her first birth, in which she had an epidural, episiotomy and forceps delivery, followed by six nights in hospital on antibiotics for a suspected infection.
During her second birth, she says, “I quickly asked for the epidural but was told the doctor was in surgery and they wanted to examine me. I was examined and was told that I was 4cm dilated, however no longer than 25 minutes later my baby was born with no pain relief.
“I also experienced foetal ejection reflex with this birth and my waters broke while my baby was already on its way out.”
Natalie says, “I truly believe my second birth could have been a home birth and I wish I had explored that option more.”
She says the midwives listened to her wishes and her birth plan during her home birth. “I decided not to have any cervical examinations and my midwife respected that right away and it was a bit of a surprise to me to not have to explain myself or fight for what I wanted.
“If I had any more children I’d love to have another home birth.”
Mistrust and misunderstandings: LGBTQ+ community faces struggle to access addiction treatment
Queer people face greater obstacles than the general population when accessing alcohol treatment, experts have warned.
Mistrust of healthcare providers, a lack of specialist services and communication problems all make it more difficult for LGBTQ+ individuals to access substance abuse treatment, despite the fact that members of the community have higher rates of drug and alcohol use than the general population.
“When someone doesn’t speak the language metaphorically or physically, it’s really quite difficult for people to be understood when they walk through the front door of a service,” said Ben Kaye, a counsellor specialising in substance misuse within the LGBTQ+ community.
He pointed out that NHS forms often list gender options as man, woman and other, making it difficult for transgender or non-binary individuals to accurately express their identity.
He also explained that many doctors are unable to provide adequate treatment and advice because they are not familiar with popular drugs within the LGBTQ+ community.
An example of this is GHB/GBL, an addictive substance commonly used in chemsex but that the NHS does not have a specific code for in their system.
Shannon Murray, a researcher at the University of South Wales, has found that one in eight LGBTQ+ individuals still report receiving unequal healthcare, with this figure rising to 32 per cent for transgender people.
She said accessing drug and alcohol treatment was a particular issue for transgender individuals because medical professionals might misunderstand their needs or attribute their substance use issues to their gender identity.
She noted that previous negative experiences with healthcare services may lead people to avoid formal treatment altogether, and to rely on informal support networks or attempt to self-manage their substance use issues instead.
While there are many LGBTQ+ specific drug and alcohol support services in London, disparities across the country are a major issue.
Ben said: “It’s a real postcode lottery. The kind of service you are going to be receiving really does depend on where you are located. London is awash with LGBTQ services, but when I was in Dorset there was hardly any."
He said strengthening support networks would be critical to improving access to treatment as hostilities towards the LGBTQ+ community increase with the recent Supreme Court ruling on the meaning of ‘sex’ in UK law.
“Taking on the system is a very difficult thing to do. What we can do on the ground is services can be better when people need help.”
‘Alcohol killed my dad and I didn’t want that to happen to me’
A former political campaigner has opened a space for Queer and sober communities after finding no support for people who want to reduce their alcohol intake by themselves.
Laura Willoughby, 50, from London co-founded ‘Club Soda’, a safe haven for sober and Queer people to practice mindful drinking. Laura quit drinking 13 years ago after noticing a similar behavioural pattern to her father.
“I ended up in a job I wasn’t enjoying and so my drinking went up and I decided that I really needed to knock it on the head. Alcohol killed my dad, and I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen to me,” she says.
Photo credit: Club Soda
For generations we have been taught to deal with trauma and feelings of being different through alcohol leading to higher harmful and dependent drinking in the queer community
According to her, behavioural patterns often feed into alcohol misuse as well as mental and social factors. She says that seeing parents drink makes it a “normalised” activity rather than something that is hereditary.
"For generations we have been taught to deal with trauma and feelings of being different through alcohol leading to higher harmful and dependent drinking in the queer community," she says.
She explains, “Ultimately, alcohol is an addictive substance and that is the reason why most queer people are alcohol dependent other than mental and familial factors.”
With the creation of Club Soda in Covent Garden, and the ‘Queers without Beers’ event, the founders aim to support those on all paths of alcohol consumption.
She says: “We’re very goal agnostic. If people want to take a break or cut down on their drinking, that's fine by us.”
Club Soda offers a wide range of alcohol-free and low alcohol drinks for those aiming to quit or reduce their alcohol consumption. Laura thinks that it is vital to educate the alcohol trade as well to see a systemic change in society.
“People don’t want alcohol free spaces only. They just want to be able to drink something non-alcoholic which is not coke and lemonade in every space out there,” she says.
Laura thinks that although there are support services like Alcoholics Anonymous in the country for alcohol misuse, there aren’t many sober spaces which cater to quitting alcohol by yourself, with adequate support online.
She says: “I felt that there wasn’t anything that supported a self-guided journey for people to change their drinking.”
As someone who was heavily involved in local government, Laura recognised that as much as there is an individual change needed, there is also societal change necessary to tackle alcohol dependency within the Queer community.
She mentions that her generation was taught that drinking is a cure to anxiety - which led to alcohol being a widely available tool for “self-medication”.
She says: “Alcohol is a social drug. It is widely available and it’s cheap, you could make it in your kitchen if you wanted to.
“We’ve got generations and generations using alcohol socially, so it is very ingrained in our society and western cultures."
‘We’re used as free labour’: student midwives’ anguish over tickbox care
With some student midwives looking after 20 mums and babies at one time, and academics saying they are underpaid, under-recognised and understaffed, many are rethinking whether they want to continue in the profession at the end of their studies.
When Phoebe Gregory started training as a midwife she wanted to create families, support people and advocate for women. Now, after three years of training and placements at NHS trusts around the north of England, she is no longer sure. “Last year I was questioning if I still wanted to be a midwife,” she says.
Over the course of their degrees, student midwives undertake 2,300 hours of placements at NHS trusts where they are supposed to be shadowing more qualified staff and learning key skills. Instead, all the student midwives we spoke to said they felt like free labour.
“We do thousands of hours of unpaid work for these trusts and then don't get a guaranteed a job at the end of it,” says Phoebe, who studies at Sheffield Hallam University.
Another midwifery undergraduate, who was too scared to be named, said even as first years, students were filling the gaps in staffing on critical wards.
“I was on a full postnatal ward, so that’s 20 women and 20 babies. It was me as a first year and one qualified midwife. That was it,” she says. “It was just horrendous.”
Shockingly, this is a common experience among student and qualified midwives. According to data from the RCM, 87 percent of midwives they surveyed said they had worked on wards so understaffed they felt unsafe.
Independent investigations into maternity wards have raised concerns about staffing levels and their impact on patient safety, but as well as these practical implications, understaffing is eroding the essential relationships between midwives and patients.
“I’ve delivered babies before where I’ve put a baby on their chest and actually introduced myself then for the first time”, says student midwife Annie (not her real name).
Another undergraduate midwife, Lara, says: "It's a domino effect of third years being thrown into rooms, which we all hate because you can’t have a relationship with patients. You just catch their baby and don't even know their name and then you’re off to the next delivery."
This depersonalisation can have tragic consequences for mothers. According to Delivering Better, a campaign group who are calling for safer and more compassionate maternity care, one in four mothers have a negative birth experience. Among these, continuity of care was something many mothers felt would have improved their experience.
“There's no substitute for a relationship between a mother and a midwife," says Jo Cruse, founder of Delivering Better.
"Where many women are seeing a different midwife at every appointment, there are risks in terms of information being lost," she adds.
In recent years midwives have been expected to document every decision made and score women on factors such as their BMI and risk factors.
However, rather than improving care for women, the student midwives we spoke to said 'scoring' women in this way can diminish their voices and lead to issues being missed.
“If you know something's abnormal for a specific person, but it doesn't score on the clinical factors, you can't really escalate it very easily,” says Phoebe.
Furthermore, guidelines determine when it is recommended for people to have certain interventions.
Patients are meant to be able to decide to go ahead with birth plans outside these guidelines. However, midwives' fears around repercussions if something goes wrong are influencing the choices available to women.
"If someone wants to give birth outside of guidelines, some midwives don't even want to go to that home," says Phoebe.
"They don't want to be there. They don't want to document anything, because they're scared of being outside the guidelines. So if someone advocates for themselves for something outside the guidelines, they're seen as a problem. They're seen as tricky."
Midwife notes can be recalled for court cases for up to 25 years after an incident and midwifery undergraduate courses like those at Sheffield Hallam University have even begun to include mock court cases as part of their training.
The Ockenden inquiry was an independent investigation into maternity care at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust which found that at least nine women and 201 babies, if given a better standard of care, could have survived.
Despite the seminal impact of the following report, the student midwives say some of its key recording recommendations are still not being implemented.
One central recommendation was that after every major incident, midwives and other staff involved are supposed to discuss what went wrong, both for the mental health of staff and so they can learn from the mistakes.
Despite this, none of the student midwives we spoke to had ever had what they would describe as a formal debrief in their three years of placements.
One student midwife said: “I have been to a debrief, but it was literally having a cup of coffee 20 minutes later and saying 'Oh, should we say this was a debrief?', and they had ticked the box.
“That was the debrief after a woman had a hysterectomy because of her haemorrhage - a major, major incident.”
This is not because midwives do not want to learn from mistakes but that they simply do not have time to do them, says Phoebe.
Professor Hora Soltani, who teaches midwifery at Sheffield Hallam says: “Student midwives come in with so much hope and so much positivity but then they just face so many challenges: they’re underpaid, they’re under-recognised, they’re understaffed.”
She says this is leading to many questioning whether to stay in the profession.
The student midwives we spoke to are coming towards the end of their course but even those who want to stay in midwifery are struggling to find jobs.
Annie says: "I've applied to every single job in a 50 mile radius from my house. In two months there were about four jobs, so no one's recruiting.
"So they say there’s no jobs because the trusts can’t afford to recruit new staff, but actually I have never stepped foot in a hospital that’s fully staffed."
Even if they do manage find jobs, the student midwives are adamant that something has to change for them to remain in the NHS long term. Increasing caesareans and medical intervention in birth is leading to declining numbers of midwifery-led births.
Experts believe midwives will soon act more as obstetrics nurses, supporting doctor-led deliveries.
For Annie, that is not an option. "I want to help as many people as possible have a beautiful delivery," she says.
"I don't want to be just stood at the side, you know, putting a gown on a woman, shoving stockings on her legs without her knowing what's going on. That’s not what I want to be a part of.”
“The essence of care seems lost”: UK doulas call out the over-medicalisation of birth
As maternal deaths remain at a 20-year-high and midwives feel increasingly disillusioned, women training as doulas is on the rise.
Victoria Gordon ,a former nurse, trained to become doula two years ago, after receiving different levels of care when she gave birth to her own three children.
"My own three births (and two losses) have all been completely different experiences. The one constant theme, was the lack of continuity in care and the medicalised approach to, what should be in most cases, a perfectly ‘normal’ event," Victoria, from Warwickshire, says.
Victoria, who also works part time in clinical research, and trained in hypnobirthing and infant feeding, believes home births empower women and means they can have more control over their births.
“As women, we’re told just to be good girls, ‘do as you’re told’, ‘doctors are always right’, but to ask why, or to say ‘no is empowering," she says.
Victoria believes having the option for a home birth is a postcode lottery. “It really depends on where you live," she says. "Some women can’t access midwives at home in their area. There are some areas I’ve heard of that have amazing home birth teams, but then there’s areas where there’s real pushback."
Recent maternity scandals are another reason why women choose home births, believes Victoria. “The number of people that are coming out of the system, so traumatised for not being listened to. Obstetric violence, it’s very real. That’s why people are opting out of the system altogether,” she says.
Victoria is trained in alternative child birth options, which she believes can be beneficial. “Hypnobirthing is a state of deep relaxation to help birth," she says. "Being relaxed is absolutely essential for your birth to progress. Hypnobirthing taps into the subconscious to know that birth is safe and to create a sense of calm so the birth can be smoother.”
As opposed to medicalising birth, doulas, including Victoria use the BRAIN acronym. She says: "The woman should ask: what are the benefits of this? What are the risks of this? What are the alternatives? To listen to their intuition. What happens if I do nothing now? To be able to balance up the choices so they have informed decisions and can have informed consent.
“This is where trauma comes in, where people are forced into doing things when they don’t really know why they’re being forced into it.”
Leanne Clark, 38, from Derbyshire, was inspired to train as a doula a year ago after giving birth to her own four children.
“I met resistance in the birth room and it made me feel like I didn’t know my own body,” says Leanne, who felt her birthing decisions were ignored.
On Leanne’s Doula UK page, she states: “My aim is to provide you with practical and emotional care that has you [the mother] at the centre… a feature that is recently all too frequently lacking within the NHS.”
She trained with the Doula Training Foundation, taking part in their four-day intensive course, led by two experienced doulas., alongside an additional module.
Leanne also believes births are becoming over-medicalised. “Unfortunately, the model that we’re dealing with at the moment is mostly medicalised and birth is something that only occasionally happens naturally," she says. "We have to ask as a country, why are we in that situation? Why are we the only mammal that isn’t being left to its own devices?
“I think we need to get the trust back that women’s bodies know what they are doing. They are designed to birth babies.”
“We’re intervening to make sure things go smoothly, and yet, birth trauma rates have risen massively in the UK," Leanne says. "Something needs to change.”
She feels there’s a stigma around home births and that a lot of women who say it’s not safe to give birth at home, but a study published in The Lancet revealed that low risk pregnant women were no more at risk of their baby dying whether they have their birth at home or in hospital and says people need to look at the evidence.
“A lot of women feel like they’re being brave if they decide to have a home birth," says Leanne. "I don’t think these women are. I think it’s present in this culture that it’s seen as unusual to give birth at home.”
Leanne has encountered mixed experiences when working with midwives, which she feels is commonplace.
“When I hear of hostilities from midwives towards doulas, it’s such a shame because it immediately changes the atmosphere in the room and that’s not acceptable,” says Leanne. “But there are great midwives out there who realise that having a doula makes their job easier, as they will have spent many hours with that family up until that point. The midwife may not have even met that family before, so they can be assured that they’ve [the mother] had a good amount of care and support.
“It’s a shame if there is resistance because if a woman has chosen a doula to come and support her, that’s then also disrespectful to the woman’s choice.”
Leanne said a lot of women who want home births are being pushed to consider freebirths due to a lack of NHS midwives being available to attend the home birth.
“I can offer the continuity of care for the family that the midwife unfortunately cannot," says Leanne. "I know many midwives that would say they wish that they could offer that. A lot of the time, women just don’t feel listened to or have someone there who knows them intimately and has spent time with them.
“I am in a privileged position of being able to get to know the woman and listen to her more than the midwives can. I see them more than the midwives do.”
Sheffield Sharks: basketball team says new venue is ready for any medical emergency
Sheffield's professional basketball team says it is prepared for every medical eventuality at its purpose-built venue which opened two years ago.
The Sheffield Sharks, who are based at the Canon Medical Arena, also provide access to heart screenings for its first team but it is unclear whether these tests are available for younger players.
Ex-Sharks player Mike Tuck recalled times in the past of players in the NBA and the NBL of players suddenly collapsing due to heart problems and is in favour for young people to have access to any medical tests that they feel they may need.
The Sharks' longest serving player and the current marketing manager as well as Head Coach for the University of Sheffield's basketball team said:
“I know every senior player gets a full medical ahead of a season, but I am unsure how far that goes down into the club. It is something I will be looking into.
“It is better to be safe than sorry. Why would you limit yourself out of fear? You might as well find out. It’s better to be safe than sorry for sure.”
Mr Tuck said making cardiac screenings available for young players was something that should be discussed.
Sharks captain Drake Jefferies also outlined the importance of heart health and explained that the facilities they have at Sheffield are top-notch to make sure everyone is fit and healthy and ready to play.
“It’s huge to make sure everything is working as it should," he said. "I have had a screening at every club I have been in. You may have to sit out but in the long run it could save your life.”
Heart-scare hockey player’s call for life-saving screenings and easy-access defibrillators
A sportsman who collapsed on the pitch believes a heart screening could have prevented his cardiac arrest and has hit out at criminals who steal and vandalise life-saving equipment.
Sam Russell was playing as hockey captain for Finchfield Hockey Club at the Doug Ellis Sports Centre in Perry Barr, Birmingham, in February 2025.
His teammates noticed the 26-year-old standing motionless on the pitch before he collapsed, going into sudden cardiac arrest (SCA).
As one of the players gave him CPR, others ran to get a defibrillator from the sports centre reception, but no one was available to give them access to the life-saving device.
After finally finding a member of staff, Sam received one shock from the defibrillator and three more once the ambulance service arrived to stabilise his heart on the way to Midlands Metropolitan Hospital.
Sam is now raising money to install more fixed location defibrillators, an appeal he launched while still recovering in hospital.
He said: “I don’t remember much from those couple days after, and I don’t remember setting up a GoFundMe.
“But a reason I wanted to do it is to get more fixed location defibrillators so if people are in the same situation as me, it’s far more accessible.”
Sam set up his GoFundMe page with a goal to raise £2,400 to cover the cost of two automated external defibrillators (AEDs), but he raised over £4,000 in just one day.
Three months later, he has received over £8000 in donations to buy and install ten fixed-location defibrillators at local leisure centres, sports facilities and on remote running tracks.
London Hearts, the leading defibrillator charity in the UK, reached out to help Sam buy and distribute the defibrillators in his local community.
Six fixed-location AEDs will be installed at The Royal School Wolverhampton, Aldersley Leisure Village and Aston University Recreation, and Kingswinford Hockey Club will receive a portable AED.
Sam's team will also be given two portable AEDs to take with them to away games.
The player’s fundraising comes as a Sheffield Wire Freedom of Information request revealed 124 defibrillators had been vandalised or stolen in England in the past two years.
Sam said: “It makes me feel sick that we fundraise for defibrillators and know that people target them within 24 hours.
“If you value your life as much mine why would you want to do something that could take away the chance to save your own life.”
Before his incident, Sam had never had a heart screening, but in the days following his sudden cardiac arrest, he endured numerous heart tests, echocardiograms and angiograms, and an MRI.
The results he received in April explained that his incident was a result of myocarditis, an inflammation in the heart caused by a viral infection.
Sam recalled that he had a flu-like symptoms three weeks before his cardiac arrest, but carried on with his daily activities, including long runs and intense hockey training.
“In hindsight, I wouldn’t have done that if it was going to cause so many problems,” he says.
“When the consultant told me the results it was a lot of weight off my shoulders because there was no longer a question mark over what caused it.”
Dr William Parker, a NIH Clinical Lecturer in Cardiology, explained that SCAs are more common in young athletes because intense exercise and adrenaline can worsen undiagnosed conditions.
He said: “If you’ve got an underlying condition particularly in high profile and high stress settings can worsen it or lead to heart problems that cause cardiac arrest.”
The defibrillators will have a sticker explaining Sam’s story and how the devices were funded to raise awareness, and thank those who have donated.
As well as defibrillators, Sam is campaigning for people to undergo The British Heart Foundation’s 15-minute online CPR training course.
“There was nowhere else for me”: Teenager on social housing’s role to lift him from homelessness
Husam Thabit was 17 years-old when he left Yemen to be with his family in Sheffield. He dreams of being a dentist and wants to study at university to achieve his goal.
He lives in social housing, with support from South Yorkshire youth homelessness charity Roundabout.
In the UK, it's estimated almost 136,000 young people aged 16-24 were homeless or at risk of homelessness in 2022-23, as per Centrepoint Databank statistics.
Husam, who has dual nationality and is now 19 years-old, arrived safely in Sheffield and lived with his aunt and her family for a while.
He said: “I stayed there until I was 18 but it was crowded and there wasn’t really space for me, so I felt like I needed to leave.
“There was nowhere else for me so I would have been cold and scared and I know I would have ended up on the streets and met people who would have taken me into all sorts of bad situations.”
When Husam reported himself as homeless and contacted social services, he was referred to Roundabout.
Roundabout is a South Yorkshire charity for youth homelessness, and its housing service, commissioned by Sheffield City Council, provides semi-supported housing for young people aged 16 to 25.
It is part of the Every Youth partnership, which is a national movement aiming to end youth homelessness in the UK.
Husam added: “My life would have been really, really bad if I hadn’t been put in touch with Roundabout."
Roundabout offers self-contained and furnished accommodation to homeless young individuals, to build trust, break down barriers, and support personal progression.
It works with over 380 young people every day, providing them shelter, and support. Their hostel, located near London Road, hosts 27 young people aged 16-21.
Roundabout says it is “strongly committed to preventing young people from becoming homeless."
It is also estimated that 1 in 62 young people in the UK were facing homelessness in 2023-2024.
Roundabout and similar charities in Sheffield and across South Yorkshire including Cherrytree, The Guinness Partnership, and Safe@Last among others, are helping young individuals find social housing, so as to provide them with a place to live and the support they require.
Instead, Husam has a place that he says he can now call home for the first time.
“The situation is awful”: Doula UK speaks out about home birth restrictions
Women are being stopped from having a home birth due to a 'widespread lack of adequate planning and training' according to a leading pregnancy and birthing charity.
Birthrights, who are campaigning to change government and NHS policy on access to home births, revealed two thirds of trusts “had service suspensions, strict restrictions or frequent interruptions” between October 2023 and November 2024.
Director of Doula UK, Trudi Dawson, who provides support to a pregnant woman before, during and after childbirth, which often involves a home birth, said: “The situation is awful. I just want people to have the choice and be supported in that. It costs the NHS so much less for a home birth than a hospital birth so on economics alone it really doesn’t make sense.”
Ms Dawson, who has been a trained doula for nearly 20 years, believes home births can provide people with more control over their birthing experience.
“We now have decent research to support the fact that, around many parameters, home births are ‘safer’ than hospital births,” she said.
In October 2024, Doula UK reported 2,090 births took place with a doula in the same year, up from 1,835 in 2021.
The organisation was founded in 2001 and now has over 700 registered members.
Ms Dawson believes birth is becoming over-medicalised. “Sadly, it has become a huge part of the entire culture around birth and drives so many crazy decisions," she said. "I’m not anti-medical. I’m just anti-fear and against fear-based decisions.”
Ms Dawson, who is also an infant feeding specialist, yoga instructor and holistic sleep coach trained to be a doula after watching her niece being safely born at home.
She said: “It changed my life. I saw the positive impact continuous care and trusted support made to the birth experience and I just wanted to give that to everyone birthing. I then found out about doulas and I was sold.
“It’s like being a travel guide for bringing a new baby into the world.”
Doulas are not legally required to have any training, but Doula UK insist their members must complete an approved training courses and a mentoring programme.
“I actually trained twice to be a doula as I enjoyed it so much and just wanted to be the best I could be," said Ms Dawson. "It then took me about two years to pass through the mentorship.”
The mum-of-three from East Sussex, who also runs her own business, Mothering Mojo, believes medics who think home births are dangerous are “spreading irrational fear” but that sometimes there are grounds for medical support.
“I am saddened when a woman has to choose between a hospital birth and a freebirth [when a birth takes place without any medical professionals, such as midwives, present] because there is no middle option.
“I had a client who had three beautiful home births. At the time her fourth baby was due, they had closed the home birth service in her area. She felt she had no choice but to freebirth, but she would rather have had a midwife there."