Safer Beginnings

Content to Enable, Educate and Support People on Maternity Journeys

Improving maternal outcomes, and addressing the safety of women and their babies, is one of the most important challenges facing maternity systems today. Safer Beginnings was an 18 month programme of work delivered by White Ribbon Alliance UK in partnership with Best Beginnings and funded by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport through the 2021-2022 TamponTax Fund. 

Working alongside 18 delivery partners and supporting 8 onward additional organisations through the provision of onward grants to further their work in maternal safety the programme aimed to improve maternity outcomes and postpartum safety for 70,950 women by 2023. 13,350 of these are women from ethnic minority communities in England, Wales and Scotland.  

The Importance of Maternal Safety

Violence of any form during pregnancy and the childbearing year can result in devastating and traumatic experiences and outcomes for women and their babies. When it comes to maternal safety, women are especially vulnerable if they have experienced trauma or harm in the build-up to or during their pregnancy. It could be related to experiences of FGM, sexual assault, domestic violence, or due to a need for greater cultural safety in maternity systems.

There is a great need for more care to be trauma-informed – assessing every person as potentially carrying trauma and ensuring that their needs are understood. Harm can result when good communications are not established and maintained in maternity care. 

Safer Beginnings Aims

Safer Beginnings aims to improve maternity outcomes and the safety of women through developing specialist information, services and interventions. These are tailored for women who have experienced, or who are at a higher risk of trauma or harm.

One key driver for our work has been to address the fact that Black, Asian and ethnic minority women and birthing people experience disproportionate adverse outcomes in maternity care. The reasons are multi-factorial but include barriers to accessing formal maternity services, endemic structural racism, poor maternal education, poor health literacy and deprivation. 

Our Approach

Our project has sought to address the danger of disrespectful, abusive or coercive treatment of women and birthing people – whether due to violence, assault or abuse that has impacted on them outside of their maternity care or due to poor care in the maternity system. We wanted to draw attention to violations of women’s autonomy, human rights and reproductive health and to find ways to equip women and maternity care professionals to navigate these sensitive topics in a trauma-informed way to both ensure that existing harms or trauma are not exacerbated or triggered and also to help prevent harms or trauma from happening inside the maternity care system. 

We know that individual voices and experiences are vital to improving maternity care. By increasing understanding of how culturally specific inequalities related to obstetric and domestic abuse/ violence and FGM/FGC informed care affect women, we have co-produced resources that can empower women from all backgrounds – and in particular those from Black, Asian and minority backgrounds - to seek safety.

Safer Beginnings Resources

Using a co-production method, the Safer Beginnings programme has led to the creation of the following new resources:

For Parents:

In January 2023 a new Safer Beginnings section will be added to the Discover library of the Baby Buddy parenting app created by Best Beginnings. Co-produced films and bite-sized articles will help improve maternal safety and outcomes for new and expectant parents and their babies. New content offers support, guidance and practical tools for parents – particularly those who have experienced trauma or harm – during pregnancy, labour, birth and afterwards. Topics covered include: self-advocacy in maternal care; emotional safety; stress responses; FGM; sexual abuse; and domestic abuse.

For Professionals:

All4Maternity has created a new e-learn module for midwives and health care professionals which will help inform and guide those who want to give the best care possible and work in a way that is free from harm.

The E-Learning Practitioner Guide for midwives and healthcare professionals will be available in early 2023 and we will be announcing this on our channels, so please stay tuned.

Free From Harm

White Ribbon Alliance UK strongly believes that improving the safety of giving birth includes not only short-term physical outcomes but long-term emotional and psychological ones too. WRA also believes that unless the same concern and consideration is given to health care professionals’ well-being and emotional safety, cycles of violence and distress will continue to occur. Respectful care must include those providing care too. WRA has also produced a new Free From Harm (FFH) resource, intended not only to raise awareness of the need to eliminate violence and minimise harm in the perinatal period, but to equip health care professionals (HCPs) with the information and tools to do so. It also aims to help midwives recognise when their own human rights are not being upheld and understand how this impacts them.    

For Families:

Maternity Helpsheets

The Women's Health and Maternal Well-being Initiative (WHMWI) is a Community Interest Company that provides support to women and their families, utilising digital technology to provide a range of online resources and groups whilst also hosting and facilitating local events. Their work and resources are suitable for all engaging with or needing health, well-being and parenting support. WHMWI have created a range of informative, practical, uplifting and sensitively written maternity helpsheets, with the needs of Black, Asian and minoritised ethnic women in mind, to help them begin a healthy maternity journey. Learn more by visiting their website.

Emotional Safety Plan

For Baby’s Sake has created a new tool called an Emotional Safety Plan. The Emotional Safety Plan is a tool that will support the whole family including mums, dads, co-parents, or non-birthing partners to record what they may need to feel emotionally safe before, during and after birth.

Safer Beginnings Onward Grants Programme 

In April 2022, we launched our Safer Beginnings onwards grants programme, inviting organisations who work to support women and girls during their maternity and early years transition into parenting to apply for a grant of up to £40,000. Applications were assessed by our onward grants panel and successful applicants attended a pitch day in London, which resulted in 8 organisations receiving funding. 

Individual voices and experiences are vital to improving maternity care and we’d like to thank all of the brilliant organisations that applied and took part in this process. 

Safer Beginnings Programme Delivery Partners

Safer Beginnings was delivered in partnership with 18 organisations and specialists working within maternity and violence and harm prevention. We are eternally grateful to each of our partners for their significant contribution to this programme of work.

Safer Beginnings Programme Impact

Please return to this page to read the full Safer Beginnings Programme Evaluation, undertaken by University of Central Lancashire in June 2023.