A leading expert has resigned from the government-commissioned review of England's maternity care, accusing its author of removing a section warning about the dangers of promoting 'normal birth ideology'.
Dr Bill Kirkup, who has led inquiries into the Morecambe Bay and East Kent maternity scandals, said Baroness Valerie Amos “listened to the wrong voices” before the passage “disappeared” from the final version of her 174-page report.
“Dr Bill Kirkup says Valerie Amos removed 'normal birth' warning from maternity review, calling it a patient safety danger.”
The section had been approved by “a significant number of people”, Kirkup told the BBC, but was cut. He resigned as one of 12 expert clinical advisers eight days before the report was published on Tuesday.
“I don’t think it’s right that we should push this issue under the covers. This is a patient safety danger and I think it should be called out as such,” he said.
The Amos report itself confirms the disagreement: “Dr Bill Kirkup decided to stand down from his role on 22 June 2026 as one of the expert advisers for the national maternity and neonatal investigation as a result of not being able to agree on the specific wording of the conclusions on normal birth ideology for inclusion in the final report.”
The dispute centres on the philosophy that women should give birth vaginally, without drugs or medical interventions such as forceps or caesarean sections. Advocates, including many midwives, strongly promote this approach. But doctors say interventions have increased to help ensure safety as the complexity of childbirth has risen—driven by older motherhood and maternal obesity—and that delays in birth can lead to litigation.
Kirkup made clear the disagreement was about more than wording. He said the amended version did not properly reflect the risks of normal birth, which previous reports have found contributed to babies suffering avoidable harm.
The government, meanwhile, has promised to appoint a national maternity commissioner to hold poorly performing hospitals to account. The announcement came after the Amos report concluded that England's maternity care is no longer fit for purpose. The review investigated 12 NHS trusts and found urgent change was needed in the way women and families are treated.
But Amos stopped short of calling for a statutory public inquiry, leaving many families disappointed. With one of the inquiry's own advisers now publicly challenging the integrity of its conclusions, questions remain over whether the report's recommendations will be enough to restore trust in a system that campaigners say has failed too many mothers and babies.