Advice for women who are due to give birth in York over the Tour de France weekend (4 – 7 July)

York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has published an advice sheet for women due to give birth in York, whose expected date of delivery is between 20 June and 17 July 2014.

The Tour de France comes to York on the weekend of 4 July 2014. York Hospital has been working with partner agencies and neighbouring hospitals to prepare for this weekend and has put a number of contingency plans and additional provisions in place.

Liz Ross, Head of Midwifery, said: “We want to reassure women and their partners that their safety and the safety of their baby is our top priority.

“We have put a number of plans in place to prepare for the Tour de France including allocating staff who work locally to work within the maternity unit that weekend.

“We have also allocated additional staff to be on call and in maternity triage and have made arrangement for partners to stay over, and mothers and babies to stay longer in the unit, if they are unable to get home after giving birth.

Over this weekend midwives will be advising women in labour to come in to hospital sooner rather than later and in order to check that they can get to hospital they are being asked to plan their route in advance in order to avoid road closures. You can do this by visiting the City of York Council website

Liz continued: “If you are concerned that you will not be able to get to hospital due to road closures you may want to make alternative arrangements and stay with friends or family who live closer to the hospital.

“Another thing to consider is arrangements for childcare as this may involve someone travelling to your home so we are asking families to consider the impact of all potential delays.”

As it may be difficult for community midwifery staff to travel across the city and to home visits that weekend, the community midwifery team will be offering detailed telephone advice to women who would normally have been having a postnatal visit on either the 5/6 July.

There will be Post natal clinics at Selby Hospital for women who wish to see a midwife on an appointment basis and on Monday 7 July post natal appointments will be available at York Hospital for any women not seen over the weekend.

In the interests of patient safety, and to reduce risks to women and babies, the home birth service will be suspended for 24 hours from 16:30 on Saturday 5 July.

Liz continued: Due to potential access difficulties or delays of Community Midwives and emergency ambulances, should they be required during labour and birth, we made the decision to suspend the home birth service for a 24 hour period.

“Women who are due to give birth at home during this period are invited to visit the Hospital to see the low risk birthing environments we have available.”

Throughout this period, Midwives will be available to seek advice, support and guidance.