A DORCHESTER-based home birth team will be celebrating their second birthday with a picnic in the park.

Dorset County Hospital maternity unit has a dedicated unit for mothers choosing to have their babies at home.

Known as the Cygnet Home Birth Team, the unit was launched at Abbotsbury Swannery in 2015.

The team is organising a celebration to coincide with the International Day of the Midwife.

It will be held on Friday, May 5, from 12noon to 4pm, in the Borough Gardens.

Families are welcome and the team is hoping that many of the families they have cared for will be at the event. All you need to do to get involved is bring a blanket and a picnic lunch and head along to the bandstand.

The Cygnet team provides all the care needed before birth, during labour and afterwards for women in their own homes and is available for women living in the hospital’s catchment area who have been assessed as low risk.

The team was launched after it was discovered home births for women attending Dorset County Hospital had fallen by half in recent years, from four per cent to two per cent, and midwives wanted to reverse this trend as part of a national initiative to encourage more home births.

Over the past two years the work of the team has seen the number of births at home rise from two per cent to 9.7 per cent – one of the highest home birth rates in the country.

Jo Hartley, Head of Midwifery at the Dorchester hospital, said: “Research has shown that giving birth at home is as safe as giving birth in hospital for most women, particularly those having a second or subsequent baby.

“Home births are associated with a lower rate of caesarean section and instrumental birth than birth in hospital.

“The midwife attends throughout the labour and birth at home to monitor progress, provide support and ensure mum and baby’s needs are met.”

For more information, contact the team on 01305 253169.

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