I have been lucky enough to visit a birth Center in the South West of England and a newly built Midwifery led unit (Co-located) in the North of England, in the last few weeks.
I was looking forward to seeing what they had done with the birthing rooms, as they had a 'blank slate' (so to speak).
Sadly I was dissapointed with both centers.
Whilst the rooms were clean and bright (and I could argue that dim might be better!) they were hardly 'fit for purpose' to encourage normal labour, mobilisation etc
In the new MLU the rooms were a good size, but still had hospital delivery beds and resusitaires (I was told these were going to be moved out soon)
Its a same that even in these new builds health professionals are not being more innvative in the design.
We are currently in the process of writing up a paper for publication so will post details when this is finalised.
