Team Maia - a positive experience for inducing labour

Team Maia is our award-winning team of maternity midwives who provide dedicated care to women who have their labour induced. Induced labour is when a mum-to-be needs help in starting their labour.

Team Maia was established to ensure all women receive the best of care and support no matter how they experience labour and birth.

The team supports women from the time of the decision to induce labour, arranging admission, providing information and helping them make informed decisions on their chosen induction method. They will assist with admission to the antenatal ward, and even in transfer to the delivery suite once in established labour.

Team Maia was launched in March 2017 and in February this year their dedication and commitment were recognised when the team won the Midwifery Innovation Award at the London Maternity and Midwifery Festival Awards.

Claire Weekes, a 30 year old mother of three, recently had her baby under the care and support of Team Maia. “It was fantastic,” said Claire. “Because of my previous birth history, I had to have my labour induced. Thanks to the amazing Team Maia midwives I felt really supported right from the start. It could have been quite daunting, but everything was so straightforward. It was completely organised and was a very relaxed experience. And all the midwives were absolutely lovely.”

Since the introduction of this team, there has been a significant increase in the level of satisfaction of care experienced by women undergoing an induction. In Team Maia’s first six months they supported 463 women having an induced labour.

Sonya Hinchey, Midwife on Team Maia, said: “We could see on the wards that women who had come in for an induction sometimes experienced delays in getting their induction started, which was unacceptable. By making induction a specific team’s responsibility we were able to ensure that these inductions would happen as planned. This has had a knock-on effect on other maternity wards too and we’re able to manage the flow much better.”

Lyndsay Walker is also a midwife on Team Maia and believes that women are far more informed about what will happen when they come into the hospital for their induction. “We have been going out to the community teams and doing training with all the midwives on how women could prepare. As one of us will be at the end of the phone, we are always able to answer any questions women may have.

“We have had great feedback from the community. Women like the reassurance that one of us will be on duty every day and they have a named person to contact. This eases any anxiety they may have about coming in for induction of labour.”