Mums have gone on YouTube to explain the benefits of changes to maternity services in Maidstone.

Under proposals awaiting final confirmation from the government, the full maternity unit at Maidstone Hospital will close and a birthing unit staffed only by midwives will open.

Full maternity services will be available at the new Pembury Hospital.

Two mums have been filmed by NHS West Kent and the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust to explain all the options available to mums-to-be.

The film will also be shown at the Mall Chequers in Maidstone.

Mum-of-two Helen Treacy, from Maidstone, who is now training to be a midwife, said: “There will be this birthing unit available, plus there’s going to be the new hospital at Pembury, plus the options of Medway and Ashford - and of course - homebirth.”

Jenny Brenchley, from Lenham, also a mum of two, said: “The midwife who had been with me from the start came with me in the ambulance. I was not put off by that and went back to Canterbury birthing unit for my second.”

Midwife Sue Eve, from Canterbury birthing centre, said of the plans for Maidstone’s birthing unit while centralising specialist services at Pembury: “This is not a downgrade of services - this is an upgrade of services.”