by Joe Walker, Adam Williams and Martin
Jefferies

A mum who gave birth in her
husband’s car TWICE says closing Canterbury’s birthing centre will
see an increase in backseat babies.

Mum-of-five Faye Lygo has leant her
support to the Kentish Gazette and kmfm campaign to Save The
Canterbury Birthing Unit.

Faye was featured in the Gazette in
December after baby Rex arrived in the back of husband Carl’s Land
Rover as they raced to the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford.

Amazingly, it was the second time
it had happened to Faye, with daughter Scarlet born in a Range
Rover outside a soup factory in the same village four years
before.

The 36-year-old, of Whitstable
Road, Blean, fears expectant mums trying to get to Margate or
Ashford in quick time could suffer the same fate after births were
banned in Canterbury.

She
said: “It’s a terrifying experience and one a pregnant women
shouldn’t have to go through. Luckily I’d had two children before
Scarlet, which helped. I couldn’t imagine how frightening it would
be for a first-time mum.

“Giving birth is one of the biggest
things you do as a woman. It’s outrageous that they don’t have the
choice to have their babies in their local hospital.

“Women are told not to come into
hospital until they’ve reached a certain point in labour. Can you
imagine getting to that stage and then having to drive to Ashford
or Margate?

“What if it’s rush hour? You could
spend an hour on the backseat of a car when we’ve got a perfectly
good hospital in the city.

“People should be able to put
Canterbury on their birth certificates. We pay our taxes and expect
to be cared for. It’s just not acceptable.”

A review of maternity services
across east Kent is currently being led by the Eastern and Coastal
Kent PCT. Its formal consultation begins next month and continues
until October.

Bosses are expected to make their
final decisions in late November or early December.

Mum-of-three Joanna Dodd, a school
teacher from Shalmsford Street, Chartham, gave birth to her first
child in hospital.

But the 31-year-old used the
birthing centre at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital during her
second and third pregnancies.

Sorry, this video asset has been removed.

Watch: Mum Joanna Dodd
speaks of her experiences at the Canterbury Birthing Unit.

She said: “The experience at the
birthing centre was infinitely preferable to anywhere else I could
imagine.

“It couldn’t have been more
different to my experience of giving birth in a normal hospital,
which I found frightening, stressful, intrusive, drawn-out and
over-medicalised. I felt like I was a mother on a conveyor belt,
whereby you give birth and you’re sent on your way.

“The birthing centre was a
completely different environment; I felt so much more confident,
respected and safe. I felt like I was a welcome guest. I had all my
ante-natal appointments there and saw my midwife there, so it was a
familiar place for me."