Who provides your community postnatal care?
Community midwives
Community midwifery is usually your first contact when your pregnancy is confirmed. Community midwives are usually based in teams of 4-8 providing care from your first appointment in pregnancy to around 14 days after the birth of your baby.
Who provides the community midwife service:
- Airedale NHS Foundation Trust
- Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust
- York & Scarborough Teaching Hospitals District NHS Foundation Trust
- South Tees Hospitals District NHS Foundation Trust
Once mothers are at home, the midwife should visit on the first day after coming home from the hospital to check on them and baby.
There is no set number of visits a mother will have from a midwife. They will visit for as long as they think support is needed. However, mothers will usually have a minimum of three visits in the first couple of weeks.
Health visiting
North Yorkshire Council commission and fund Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust to provide the health visiting service across all areas of North Yorkshire. The minimum contacts are:
- Antenatal (usually between 28-32 weeks gestation)
- New birth visit (10-14 days)
- 6-8 weeks
- 9-12 months
- 2.5 years
Additional contacts will be delivered in accordance to need.
You can contact the health visitors for support for anything to do with your baby/child and their development. Their number is 0300 303 0916 and is open Monday to Friday from 9am until 5pm.
Doctors and the 6-8-week check-up
In April 2020, the Government introduced the six to eight-week postnatal check after Healthwatch England shared the experiences of almost 1,800 women on mental health during their journey to parenthood.
Additionally, general practitioners in England have since been contractually obliged and paid to assess new mothers’ mental health and wellbeing, providing an opportunity for referral to specialist services and additional support. Crucially, the checks must take place separately from a postnatal check focused on the health of the baby.
The statutory organisations accountable for NHS spend who commission GPs/doctors to provide these check-ups are integrated care boards. The local ones are NHS Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board and NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (who cover Craven).
