ArticleCommunications medicine2025
Impact of midwife continuity of carer on stillbirth rate and first feed in England.
Article in Communications medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Review
- Review
- Linguistic Manoeuvres: Obstetric Violence Camouflages Harm and Loss of Consent From Birth.The Medical journal of Australia · 2026Article
- Educating for Equity: Preparing Student Midwives for Antenatal Care of Vulnerable Pregnant Women-A Pilot Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The Impact of Community-Based Midwife Continuity of Care Models for Women Living in Areas of Social Disadvantage and Ethnic Diversity in the United Kingdom: A Prospective Cohort Study.BJOG : an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology · 2026Article
- Why current risk factor-based approaches fall short in predicting stillbirth: a national cohort study of nulliparous women in England.BMC medicine · 2026Article
- Data Resource Profile: Maternity Services Dataset (MSDS).International journal of population data science · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIn 2017 NHS England started rolling out a model where women have continuity of carer with the same midwifery team throughout the perinatal period. This study uses national data to test whether women of different groups receiving midwife continuity of carer had lower stillbirth rates and higher rates of a first feed of breast milk than women receiving standard care.
methodsWe compared the two outcomes for women placed on the midwife continuity of carer pathway by 24 weeks and women receiving standard care in England, with logistic regression standardising between groups. We used the Maternity Services Dataset covering 922,149 women conceiving between 2020 and 2022.
resultsCombining all demographic groups, women on a midwife continuity of carer pathway have a higher first feed of breast milk rate (p < 0.001), but do not show a difference in stillbirth rate, compared to women receiving standard care. However, Black women on this pathway have lower stillbirth rates (p = 0.047) compared to Black women receiving standard care, the only demographic group showing a difference. Women with no antenatal appointment at all by 24 weeks have much higher stillbirth rates than those with an appointment (p < 0.001).
conclusionsThe findings that midwifery continuity of carer increases the first feed of breast milk uptake, which has health benefits. It may decrease stillbirth rates for Black women. Both findings inform future policy development and research. Further investigation and outreach around women not coming forward for timely antenatal care may also be beneficial.
Identifiers
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.