"Women are finally being listened to" - Louise discusses the breakthrough that could transform maternity care and save lives

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0:35Louise: howdy ryan howdy partner how are you you've been you've been wearing so many hats lately i don't know how to address you um right well you're wearing a hat now yeah but you're a woman of many talents louise that's really kind of you i feel like i'm spinning many plates and probably smashing some of them well it doesn't look like that for my red lovely seat over here can you not stroke the velvet like that. You know how some people have velvet phobias? Yeah, my brother's one of those. I'm giving most of the viewers right now an ick. My brother is one of those. Is he? Yeah, he can't touch velvet.

1:08Louise: Yeah, it's quite a specific, it's quite Marmite-y velvet. How would you like to start today's episode, Louise? Well, why don't we talk about some positives? That's always a good idea. Let's always start it light. Go on then. Well, you very kindly organised a little date for us. We went to Petersham Nurseries and it was beautiful. It was great. So I wanted to say thank you. Oh, you're welcome. Because I didn't organise anything. No. So yeah, you took agency over that one. And I need to give credit where credit's due. Because actually once I had a boyfriend who pulled me up on the fact that I never said thank you for anything.

1:45Louise: Isn't that awful? Yeah, you've told me this story many times. Probably to our audience as well. Have I? It's not good. Because I've always thought I was a really polite person. but um you are a polite person i'll give it to you but thank you i'm really i'm really pleased that we went to peachesham nurseries actually we haven't been there since we were looking at potentially getting married and we were on that circuit of looking at venues yeah we went to q we went to peachesham we went to some other places in london i can't remember the names they clearly left a really lasting mark on our minds but peachesham actually did obviously we didn't go ahead with it but going back what like seven eight years later honestly i had a great time i'm so pleased that we went ahead to do that it's such a beautiful space yeah it feels like you're in the mediterranean but you're in southwest london it's quite close to richmond park so very close kind of the perfect place to do a little weekend walk and then a lunch or for us it was it was nice it was a balmy evening we had an early dinner at six o 'clock and it's intimate it's a really good date spot and then we drove back through the park sundown kind of time and we saw so many deer there's so many deer like like giant sort of royal stags and all the all the baby ones around it was awesome it was like bambi was epic before yeah the mom gets killed um it was really great the i actually didn't realize how many people are having a great time in richmond park on a on a like an on an afternoon it was midweek wasn't it um what day was it we picked leo up from school what day and then we headed out i can't remember it was like a tuesday or wednesday or thursday oh that's nice yeah it was like a tuesday wednesday or thursday in the middle of the week and people were having picnics someone was having like a hen do someone was having like a 30th birthday party there were people just laid out on these picnic blankets and it looked but it is so scenic it is so nice up there if we lived there i would go more regularly and then i obviously had to do the thing where i'm just i love a google um where i had to look up whether you could sleep and camp in richmond park or whether they actually shut the gates and the answer is and the answer is i actually think it's open to pedestrians all 24 7 they don't shut the So it's illegal to sleep there.

4:07Louise: But I would be surprised if some people, if some people are following those rules. You reckon those people just curled up under the trees? It's a huge park. Like you can get away with a lot in that park. Couldn't you? Couldn't you? Guys, it's massive. Like they might have the odd ranger, but they're not going to be driving around in the night. Would you do that? Yes. Have you ever slept in a park before? No, but I took a motorbike tent. Me and Will, a friend of mine, we were on motorbikes, driving responsibly, and I had this roll-up tent on the back of my motorbike, and we wanted to go and take some photos and test run a shoot that we were going to do for this brand.

4:46So we pulled off this cycle track, which is quite a steep downhill. You've probably all been on that hill. And we were off the road in the fern, and we set up this mini camp with the two motorbikes parked up and the two tents opened up.

4:59Louise: Yeah, enrichment. Yeah, bearing in mind these are like roll-up tents, so it's not like poles and everything. You literally just unravel it and fold it onto the floor yeah it's like a two minute job hey some guy hurtled down the the cycle path slammed his brakes on got off walked back up the hill started calling the park's police on us being like you cannot park in the park sorry you cannot um camp in the park you shouldn't be on the ferns you're damaging the ecosystem and i was like good lord like first of all we're not on the flowers we're just on the grass verge and we are going to be out of here before you're back on back in your cleats you bellend oh wait oh it wasn't even a ranger it was a cyclist a cyclist i think that cyclists think that they own richmond park i i completely agree like they are so into that park and those like pounding those pavements yeah pavements roads yeah yeah what kind of person does that it's so intriguing how there are so many different people in this world that is the question i asked him i was like why have you gone to such lengths to you've now got you've walked uphill with your bicycle to come and tell us that we can't do this you could have been half the mile down the road probably also this was in the day right yeah so you might just be like needing to have a little lie down i was like what is the issue i'm just taking a photo oh it was wild stuff like that just really grinds my gears what can we label that person so we've obviously we we've established type A and B personalities in the podcast.

6:26Louise: We talk about personality types quite a lot. It's just a Karen, isn't it? But that's just a Karen. What's the, what's the male equivalent of a Karen? Phil. Oh no, but we can't just start using random names, can we? Is there such thing? We don't want to offend anybody. I don't know if there is such thing. We'll just go with Karen. I think it's a Darren. It's a Darren. It's a Darren. Oh my goodness. That actually is perfect. And also you, we can say that because your cousin's called Darren and I can say Karen because my mum's called Karen. So we're allowed. That gives us the authority to start slagging off these names.

6:57Louise: Oh my God, I never knew it. So now when you don't do something that's really annoying, I'm going to call you a Darren because I normally call you a Brian because I just forget your name sometimes. Every coffee shop gets my name as Brian. Every time I go for like a coffee and I pick up the cup, it says the word Brian. I'm like, how have you got Brian? I said Brian. You need to have some elocution lessons, babe. Anyway, Peterson was delightful. and the only thing that was the slight curveball was that we had to take Leo which was probably unsurprising to our listeners because he comes with us everywhere.

7:29Louise: It was a little bit chaotic and... No it wasn't he was alright. There was a couple of moments you thought that I did a good job, let's just talk about that. Okay we'll talk about that. Ryan did an amazing job. You handled it you had him on your lap, you were doing the colouring, you were playing join the darts, crosswords all that jazz well done it felt like we were splitting the load yeah do you think it's do you think following the 777 rule I love a rule do you think it's helped you do love a rule don't you with where we're at yeah I do well cripes what have we got signed up for this week well I've actually got something for you and Leo I won't be part of it but you guys can have a great time cute yeah I mean are we going to do that now yeah what is it well I'm going away on Sunday to an event and you're not going so are you going to enjoy yourself without me hell yeah brother I actually do genuinely love f1 so i'm gonna have a great time so anyway yeah so i so the surprise that i by the way i can never get a surprise past louise she is impossible to plan for because you just somehow squeeze it out of me every time anyway i really want you guys to go and have a lovely time doing something together so i was like what could i do now this could work or it could not work because Leo, he doesn't really sit down for too long.

8:44But I've got you some plush tickets in one of those everyman cinemas to go and watch the new Toy Story film.

8:52Louise: Yay! Which I think... Oh, fucking hell. Guys, I'm acting because I already guessed what it was. Oh, for God's sake, see? No, I'm genuinely actually really excited because I've not been to the cinema on ages. And I... It's Leo's first time. I'm embarrassed to admit Leo's never been to the cinema. so we took him for a little tea party at the school that he's going to be joining in September which felt like such a big big afternoon and lots of the teachers were trying to encourage him and make him feel confident and they were asking whether he'd seen the new Toy Story movie he was actually wearing a toy the t-shirt with Woody on it and he hadn't and then I was like gosh he's actually never even been to the cinema before but that's all right is that all right yeah yeah Yeah.

9:37Louise: Yeah. It's quite a big thing to take a child to the cinema. Yeah, it is. I mean, I've taken him to the theatre before. We've been to some really cute theatres. There's an amazing theatre called the Unicorn Theatre over in Southbank and we'll occasionally go there when they have something fun running that's age appropriate. But with the cinema... I know. The idea of like sitting still for two hours. How long is the movie? 141. Did check that out for you. Perfect. because I can't even sit still for longer than an hour and a half. I think you're going to have a great time. I think the movie's going to, I hope you have a great time.

10:13Thank you for booking that. I'm excited.

10:15Louise: And you're on comfy seats. There's part of me that kind of wants to come with you because I'm a massive Toy Story fan, as you know. Do you know much about the storyline? No. Storyline is around basically how technology, and there's a new character in the movie, which is an iPad. I think it's called Lily or something. And the message is really around the dangers of technology and what it's doing for childhood and playtime and how technology is replacing toys and the imagination and the creative freedom that children should be having. So I think it's going to be a really, it's obviously a very relevant thing because there's so many conversations that happen around screens and digital tech and tech things like this and what impact that's having on children's development with social skills and confidence and knowing what's acceptable in different scenarios with behaviours and what sort of stuff.

11:09So I think it would be an amazing film. And I've seen, people have told me that children of now, having seen this film, like they've gone right off their iPads and tablets and they've gone off all of the screens because they're scared. They're scared about that reliance on tech and what it's doing to their minds and their characters and their spirit. So it's a very important message.

11:32Louise: Wow. well then i'm doubly as excited to double down on this movie you're definitely gonna cry why i just think you will oh god i don't want to cry though in front of leo i've seen i've seen the everyone kicking back on a sofa i've seen the trailer and there's just a snippet of like this lonely toy shelf that's been neglected oh no and i'm like louise is gonna cry at that bit oh no yeah well because all the kids are then on the screens okay so these toys have been left behind I actually want to cry now already. They're like this. This is not good. And the toy shop has left and Woody's there like.

12:05Louise: Oh no.

12:09I knew it would get you.

12:10Louise: And is Andy in it still? I don't know. I haven't seen it my love. You tell me. I'm going to have to do some preparation on like how to, you know, communicate the messages to Leo afterwards. No, I think that's really cool. I think you should, because it might not land with a four and a half year old boy, but I reckon you could find your way to like, find a way so that he can take something away from it. Okay. do you know what i mean this feels like i'm spending the weekend at school with leo it's a sunday movie i'll be back i'll be back by the time the movie finishes okay great so even though leo's not really on an ipad and doesn't spend any time on our phones occasionally he'll ask to see something like he'll get me to get google search out because he wants to know what football boots someone's wearing or like what a like you know whether something's a whale or a shark and to differentiate or he'll ask a really profound question like how do boats float and i don't know the answer and i get really embarrassed um what else did you ask me the other day and then he said how do people breathe underwater when they're in a submarine honestly isn't that a great question i then had to just squirrel away otherwise i'd be making something up and yeah so he doesn't spend a huge amount of time on tech but I what I do know is that his memory is very good and much better than we would ever give him credit for or imagine a four and a half year old to have especially given that there's a lot of posts on Instagram at the moment that talk about how kids don't remember any of their childhood up until they get they reach four four or five right and i think the messaging with those clips is that oh you know a lot of memories that we're creating with our kids in those early years are for parents and for the joy of parents versus the joy of of children um but he sometimes really shocks me with what he can remember from when he was three or even two like the koala who could exactly so he can remember going to all of these theater shows and he's only just starting to pipe up about that now and so even though he's only four and a half and we're taking him to see this movie with a lot of really important educational messages behind it i think that hopefully he'll remember that and it will impact the decisions that he makes when say at school he is in a position to be offered an ipad so we'll probably be watching the movie every year but it is interesting because it's not really one of those things that we've intentionally um tried to do as parents for leo like we haven't said oh you can't you can't actually use the ipad or we don't really want you to watch tv he's he's not shown any interest in screens at all up until he doesn't own an ipad well you say that before he was born i bought an ipad and i put a bear logo on the back of it and i was like for i engraved it with the words for our baby oh you did actually you engraved the pencil bit thinking that he would be like on there drawing and watching disney like he could not give him less of a shit about an ipad or a screen you you bought him a plastic laptop which yeah he used for half a flight to antigua and then i think binned it yeah we did i'd read that before a long haul flight and it was our first ever long haul flight with leo that we needed to buy him something new that could keep him occupied for the for the journey so yeah i bought him a little plastic fold out laptop he will if i'm on the laptop finishing a bit of work at the end of the day like he likes to hammer the keys and really annoy me on the laptop and he likes to slam the lid shut so he's actually doing the hard work for us he's saying no and sometimes he'll say put your phone away no no no he's like quite bossy about it it's great it's like phone away well let me know how it goes on sunday so he's teaching us uh but anyway i do think it's it's very important that these uh that um these big studios are making movies that have uh like merit benefits for society um i'm going to give you another compliment thank you i tuned into that bbc interview you did with leo and i've never ever seen you articulate so brilliantly in all your years you didn't look remotely flustered or nervous sometimes when you're nervous you get this little red patch on your neck no signs you had no trip or fumble in your words and it was just immaculate I just thought oh my gosh I've never seen you in your lane like that before it was honestly so impressive so well done thank you I know how nervous you were in the days leading up to that yeah it's normally like a 24-hour period before I have a big public facing engagement like that that i get very nervous thanks for flagging the red rash because i've actually forgotten about that but that does normally rear its ugly head every time if i see that come up tricky one you were yeah so you were on the red on the red couch with bbc news and you had was it maybe like the main segment of that that particular news morning so this was on on Tuesday which I think was the 30th and they were doing a lot of news coverage around the maternity scandal and it was actually the day that Baroness Amos was reporting on her latest findings and it was only a few days following Donna Ockenden's report so there's been yeah so much noise in this space and I was really grateful to be invited up to the BBC which is actually all of the studios are based in Manchester so they've got a kind of big media city up there and Callum my PR had actually asked whether I wanted to do it the week before and we weren't sure and I'm so glad that I went and I pushed myself out of my comfort zone because ultimately it is the biggest morning show it has six million viewers really and it is to be honest it's the show that I always have on in my house in the morning and I've never done it before.

18:18Louise: And I was very nervous. We went up on the train the night before. I had a whale of a time with Callum because he's just the funniest person ever. And we've got so much in common. And then it was a really early start. I mean, I was up at four. So I think part of the nerves were quashed because I didn't have the anticipation building all day. I was a little bit tired, but I get into a place where I can't actually communicate with anyone that morning. I just shout everything that everyone's saying to me. So people are trying to be polite and I'm in the hair and makeup chair and I'm literally just nodding along.

18:49Louise: But in my mind, I'm kind of just going over everything that I want to say. And I think, you know, there's that phrase, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And I think that's more relevant to women that have been cheated on, but I feel cheated by the system. and it's true when you feel so scorned by something it drives you to be able to speak about it with so much gumption that actually in that moment in the chair I just held on to anger and it totally over read overrode the emotion of fear and and that's I think why I was able to talk about it it was it was um it was tricky because I was told only five minutes before I went on that I was actually going to be having the conversation while Baroness Amos was on the screen.

19:35Louise: So she was dialing in from London because presumably she'd be doing a lot of press throughout that day. So that really spun me out and she was doing a lot of the talking. And so I didn't have much space to talk. But very kindly, John Kay and Sally Nugent gave me, they actually stretched out the slots that I was able to talk. I had a really terrible. So before you do any of these press things, you have a research call. with someone and it was the day before and I was just not in the zone at all and I was just flipping out these really weird stories that I'd read in the financial times over the weekend about how in the 80s women this is actually kind of interesting but how in the 80s it was basically the fashionable thing that doctors would get women to shave before giving birth they would also use enemas and it was also the fashionable thing to do episiotomies which is where they cut a woman to deliver the baby.

20:28Louise: And it was, it was spoken about in such a, like a rough and ready way as if, you know, doctors are the ones that have total agency over the female body. Anyway, so I went off in this massive tangent about all of that on the research call. And I think that they were panicking that I was going to go like really left field with it. So they were like, we'll pay you with Baroness Amos and a couple of other people and maybe kind of limit what you're going to say, but they were really happy with it there was so much feedback from the public that live yeah live that the that the mess that they they allowed me to stay on the sofa for half an hour which is really really rare that's amazing and they actually gave me the grace of uh including me in the segment after where they had a conversation with the health minister and i was able to ask him a couple of questions which yeah i missed that segment which is annoying me and leo were in the bath and i was like i think mummy's coming on at seven so he'd do a countdown like 10 and it just wouldn't come and it was like 7 15 and he was like dad is this gonna happen well because it was still baroness amos talking well and then and then it kind of was flipping between this military uh something story yeah and i had to reassure him that mummy's coming oh no at that point your fingers are like prunes i was like yeah well no we started in the bath then we entered the bedroom and then we i was like you may as well just get dressed at this point and we'll just keep it playing in the background but we did think for a moment that baroness baroness amos was gonna steal the the opportunity for you to have your moment okay but we saw we did see your segment i thought that was it so i was like wow that was amazing we missed the we missed the q a or sorry the answer session the question was uh what was his name sorry james my so he's our current health secretary and ultimately he's the one um with baroness amos that would have been announcing that the government are going to appoint a maternity commissioner which for us is a huge milestone that still feels quite surreal um we got the heads up the night before basically all news is under embargo until midnight the night before and then it gets distributed to the press hence there are researchers that work in in all of these offices throughout the night as 24 7 and um but we did i actually had a few people dm me about it the day before so actually it's crazy i've got eyes and ears everywhere um who was saying well done like no one should know about this yet but we know that they're going to be announcing that they are going to appoint a mortality commissioner so i that's amazing yeah it's really cool and even what's really cool so like even yeah yeah but i feel like like this what is this episode 24 i feel like well i feel like some this for 24 episodes we've been speaking about your hopes and ambitions to crack this maternity scandal and you know be part of this appointing someone who can take responsibility and better the the care and the continuity and and everything for for women and babies and families and we've been talking back and forth for 24 episodes and i feel like we i feel like you have taken me and everyone else on this journey of like okay here's a little update for you like we're you know you've had a couple of setbacks and you had west treating and then he resigned and for a moment we all thought it was going to fold and then and then you've got you've you've arrived at this conclusion where it's like well actually it's worth like i know i know it's but i know it's a collective effort and i know you don't I know you wouldn't want me to uh paint this picture of like it's all down to you but it largely is down to you like you've used your platform you've been so consistent and dedicated to the cause you've now had like a historical victory and actually I I just one more thing I've only done a few uh like live tv things with loose women and we did uh good morning britain was it yeah i have some experience with like how they really do box you in and you don't get much time at all yeah and like especially if we do it as a pair i don't get fucking any time but but for you to have 30 minutes on on the on the couch would be goes to show just how well positioned you are how well you were doing how important the topic is and how much like there is a there's a national uh need to have this moment and you were right in the middle of it So I think it's incredible.

24:52Louise: Thank you. What you said about a historic moment is actually somewhat true because there has never been a statutory maternity and neonatal commissioner before, ever, in the history of politics. So it is a huge change to bring somebody in that is party neutral who can help advise and sit on that task force with the health secretary. And I've probably mentioned before, but we do have commissioners for other things. So domestic abuse and the children's commissioner and the work that they seek to do outside of what else is going on inside politics is really, really important. And I think it's about holding the government and the systems accountable and actioning methodically the recommendations that have been made for years and decades over countless inquiries.

25:48Louise: inquiries. So hopefully, you know, if we keep shouting, we really can make change. So off the back of the Ockenden report, one of the things that the government has rolled out is they've extended Martha's rule, which is this incredible rule that I shared actually about on my Instagram that was born from a devastating loss of this beautiful girl called Martha. It sort of gives me goosebumps talking about it. She's 30 and her parents weren't listened to and she ended up dying of sepsis and they knew something was wrong and they just couldn't get the attention the the connection is that martha's rule has been extended to maternity services off the back of the okanda report and the rule basically means that if you're not being listened to that you can ask for the martha's rule phone number which every hospital will have an individual number and and you will get your case will get escalated if you believe that yourself or someone that you love is deteriorating quickly and you're not being seen to and it's already saved a lot of lives and i shared it as i mentioned on my instagram and i've had a lot of people message me to say that they work on it oh really say that they've seen the incredible impact it's how that it has and i guess for a lot of people that work with charities or that do a lot of campaign work it's so emotional you don't see you don't always see like the tangible difference that it makes so like even with the maternity commissioner you know that's someone that's going to be reporting to the public annually so once a year and hopefully you know i can use my voice to coordinate conversations with the public educating them on things and policy changes but quite often people don't you know you don't really get to know what's happening and what difference is being made but the fact that so many people have messaged saying that's my job in a hospital it makes such a big difference is really incredible you know obviously it feels amazing for for me on a kind of granular level but also then I can share that with the public so they kind of all feel like they are a part of this journey together and I think that's the part that I enjoy and I also wanted to say thank you for saying that acknowledging that I wouldn't want all of the spotlight to be on me because this campaign has been born out of something that was a recommendation in the birth trauma inquiry in 2024 that Theo and Rosie Duffield included and Theo and I have paired together at the beginning of this year and neither of us could have done this without each other because she is educating me every day you know every week we'll have touch points and it's it's sort of really brought us together so it's it's really a collective effort but thank you anyway for so just so if i was to if i was to rewind the clock and i was in that hospital having seen you go through all that stuff if i'd said to someone martha's rule are you telling me that i would have been escalated on the phone or taken to someone to have a much more serious chat in that moment yeah so you could basically you before you need to say you need to speak to the people on the ward the doctors whoever's there i'm not happy with what's happening i'm really worried about this patient or my loved one or my wife um and i'd like to speak to somebody else i think we need some urgent care here but but you say i want to action if they're not actioning any changes then you can pull out the martha's law card martha's rule but how would you say it i want to know i'm trying to visualize myself and that's why and that's why the education piece is so important because when i first heard about martha's rule i was like oh that sounds really great but how are you actually going to do anything with it um you can you would say so if that if it's not written anywhere and there are no leaflets about it then you would say excuse me are you able to provide me with this hospital's martha's rule number phone number that's what i was getting that's what i was having and really saving a lot of lives and the other thing that was actually interesting just because I've done so much research obviously around this ahead of the BBC segment that I thought correlates with our story because you mentioned you know our circumstances we obviously gave birth in November of 21 in three months later in 2022 the NHS like lead midwife announced publicly that hospitals should no longer or maternity units should no longer be measured on like their success rates should no longer be measured on c-section rates so i'm not actually explaining that properly but what i mean is that hospitals for a really long time which lots of people didn't know about have been um sort of held to standards which mean that they basically are trying to push women towards having natural births yes yeah and as of 2022 that's no longer the case and it's just interesting obviously for us like timings wise that that came just three months after we gave birth and really that there always needs to be a turning point and it's just really really shit for us that sounds like a case of wrong place wrong time unfortunately for us Yeah.

31:07Why do you think now, after probably a long, long time of people trying before you, why do you think the government now have decided to listen and take some action in this area of maternity?

31:19Louise: I think because women's voices are starting to be heard. I think too many people have been failed and let down. I think there have been four inquiries that have been exactly the same. Don Arkenden, who for context used to be a midwife and has led a lot of these inquiries and looked into a lot of these hospitals. The latest was into the Nottingham University Trust Hospitals. I get a little confused with that. Nottingham Hospital.

31:48Louise: That was the biggest inquiry that's taken place. And all of them. What do you mean by that? Is that because there were so many failed cases in that one area? that she spoke with the most families that have ever been spoken to in any inquiry even more than in then baroness amos's report which is the one that came out on tuesday right um so they all are saying the same thing which is that women are not being listened to which i can vouch for because one of the things that was highlighted to me and at least acknowledged when i had my birth what's it called birth reflections debrief which actually you came to was the one thing that they held their hand up to did you record it was that they said like we need to do better at listening to women which didn't mean anything to me at the time because it sounds like such a mundane thing doesn't it oh just listen and how do you actually action change around listening how do you get everybody to listen better i think when what that boils down to is an overall culture a culture of honesty, a culture of safety, one where people aren't covering up, where midwives, doctors, consultants feel like they can speak their truth and not feel like the people that are above them are going to, well, quash their voice and steer the ship.

33:16Louise: And women, there's not enough transparency. The education is horrendous. There's horrendous racism. There's a postcode lottery still. It's basically luck of the draw. And it's been a really petrifying time for women. Another thing that's awful is that women have basically been dismissed and told, been told that it's the problem is them and that it's not a national scandal. So every person that has faced something catastrophic that has changed the course of their life has been sent home from hospital believing that it is them and that they are the only one and it's only when people have started to get better and to heal and have heard other stories and they've used their voice that they've realized that they're a collective of people and this is not we're not talking individual numbers we can't count these numbers on our hands we're not talking tens hundreds thousands we're talking hundreds of thousands of people across the country that have been affected by this that are starting to find their power together and they're holding the government accountable and very likely a lot more who haven't who have not been able to and the messages that i receive every day are so harrowing um and so finally the government are realizing that they have to listen and they have to make this a priority and especially at a time obviously um you know labor or in muddy water i think to be honest they are trying to win back some popularity they they've they've uh said that they're going to allocate 41 million pounds more as a sort of an immediate knee-jerk reaction to allocate towards improving the safety of of some hospitals that aren't in a good spot it's crazy when you look at numbers like that I know, is that going into infrastructure?

35:05Louise: Is it fixing leaking roofs? Is it, they've said that they're going to deploy, I can't remember how many new midwives, but they're creating more posts for midwives to fill that huge midwife shortage. It's a thousand. See, I wanted to say 10 ,000 because a thousand sounds so menial when you think about it. 41 million pounds obviously to the layman like you are right that's a huge amount of money but when you look at the fact that two days ago Keir Starmer has allocated 15 billion pounds extra in military funding so that we have a more impressive defense force and then you look at 40 million as a comparison to that number it's outrageous but the general public obviously they don't dig into these things and why would they because we're all suffering with our own complicated lives we don't have the time to properly investigate these things and it's only when you when you are affected by something that you care so strongly that you start to really dig into it and i think it's yeah it's it's kind of a scary time from everything that i've seen um in relation to this report and the next steps it all looks really positive but has there been any criticism around the report and things that have been uncovered

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37:03Louise: So there have been quite a few criticisms of Baroness Amos' report. So it's 180 pages long and I've done my best to skim through it and kind of summarize it as quickly as I can, especially before doing press but essentially they've removed any of the the stories from the families that contributed which is probably pretty heartbreaking from them they've stripped away any of the emotion and they've stripped away any of those like the specific details so for things like natural birth ideology it just feels really basic given the fact that they asked for an extension. So I guess the difference, right, is that Donna Ockenden's report focused on one hospital, but the Amos report should be national and kind of encompassing everyone.

37:55Louise: And so I suppose for people - But it wasn't, is that what you're saying? Well, it is a national report, but they've not given it the same grace that those more specific reports have done. But is that not just because if you gave every individual hospital and trust or whatever the right word is, if you give it the same grace and the same opportunity as they did Nottingham, it wouldn't be a 180 page document. It'd be 10 ,080. But I think for a lot of people that that's what that that is what they are looking for. And so a lot of people are pushing for a statutory inquiry, which is a national inquiry.

38:35Louise: And that's interesting because. I've been kind of reading a bit more about what that is. Parenthood is supposed to be statutory because she's supposed to be removed from any party. but some people are accusing her or criticizing the report as being like quite uh biased in favor of like nhs england and like maybe like the labor party whereas the statutory inquiry like moves out one step further than that and it looks at the entire country and the failings of maternity care in the entire country so i personally actually think that that's a a good idea because it it basically it forced it well actually i've written it down here because i don't want to get this wrong for people but it's a specific legal mechanism which was the statutory public inquiry is a specific legal mechanism under the inquiries act of 2005 and the key difference is that it has legal powers to compel witnesses to give evidence and produce documents under oath and refusal is a criminal offense so it looks at every single hospital and looks at everybody's role and you have to partake in it and the likelihood is that it will uncover some horrendous things and there will be some criminal offenses involved in that the issue i guess and one of the reasons why lots of people would say oh let's not do that is they can take years so we're talking decades and we're talking billions of pounds if you think about the scale of this so it's very expensive and it takes a long time I'm all for it because I would like to get answers for everybody that has been as affected as I have across the country because I think everybody deserves that um for for us our priority is to try and think of things that can help in the immediate so the maternity commissioner at least is one step forward and I'm not saying that they're going to solve all of the problems and we don't even know when that role is going to actually be appointed but it is someone that can be held accountable that sits outside of party politics and when there's a lot of instability they will always be focusing on that and they can then also do these sort of other inquiries run these other inquiries in tandem just some other examples for anyone that's interested because i find this sort of thing interesting of other statutory public inquiries that have taken place in this country before just to give you an idea of the scale are the infected blood inquiry, which happened between 2017 and 2024.

41:08Louise: Majorly scandalous that people were being given blood transfusions, which hadn't been screened properly, and they were infected with life-threatening diseases. The Grenfell Tower inquiry, the UK COVID-19 inquiry, which is ongoing and was launched in 2022. The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. the manchester arena inquiry undercover policing inquiry still ongoing even though it was launched in 2015 just to give you an idea that's 11 years ago and the hillsborough inquiry um so when you look at those other things you do think well maternity care should be as important as the grenfell inquiry you know but who i'm not in a position to start talking about this because i'm I'm not a politician and I don't have enough experience but I I can see why the conversation is is happening and why people are really really fucking upset can you summarize if you know the answer what happens next because I feel like you've just had the news that it's gonna they are going to appoint a commissioner what does Louise and Louise and Theo what do you do next so we are going to hand in the petition to number 10 next week and then we'll keep pushing to get a deadline for the appointment of the commissioner and do you have like a an idea of when you want this person to put their feet under the desk as soon as possible but we're going to have probably a new prime minister in a couple of weeks louise thompson shut off i'm voting for you and then we will just keep everything it changes every week so we don't know i can't make a plan or a goal post so we'll keep moving with it I think G was going to give you a round of applause.

42:55Louise: Thanks guys. If I, if I was a, if I was a young woman and I was tuning into not just this podcast, but the news and all the stories that are coming to the forefront about failed maternity cases. If I was a woman, I'd be really quite terrified by this. And it probably would make me question if I wanted to start a family, because I'd be so scared. how do you think like what what what what would you say to people like that who might be feeling that way because it shouldn't be that way should it yeah i feel like i feel like as a result of all of this terrible stuff that's happened we've now like we've now you know ripped it wide open and we're looking at all all of these cases that are in front of us i say we like whoever and it's like there's a giant magnifying glass and all this terrifying stuff that's happening families have been touched by it from you know all across the nation how do you how do you then get to the part where it's like actually we're going to fix all of it and you're all going to be in safe hands and this is a wonderful idea to have a family if you choose to do that so i think it's a really good question because everything that is being spoken about is negative because that's what catches attention and it's important and it's it's hard to do and it's hard to go there for all of these families but it is really important because it's the only thing that's going to move the needle i think for anyone that's pregnant that's out there at the moment it's important to remember that these are all retrospective cases so these are things that have already happened and the spotlight at the moment is going to be on improving care and so you know every trust every doctor every consultant every midwife out there at the moment will have seen all of this in the news and they will know that this is that this is something that they they need to work towards improving too so i think from that perspective it's actually important and it's positive so a prime example i suppose yesterday i was at a dinner with two pregnant women who are both giving birth one's on tuesday one's on the following monday oh really yeah and so i was mindful like little of me sat there there with the big pregnant bellies and you know feeling a bit like the elephant in the room that i'm the one that's going around like banging this drum and they're probably oh god it's not it's her like is she the bad omen no but actually thank fuck she spoke up because we were probably gonna have a great experience now well they well they were and actually both of them were thanking me and one of them who actually i've known for a while because she's this awesome woman and she's great sort of woman in business that i look up to and she came up to me and she said thank you so much for all the work that you're doing i really want to have a water bath uh in the hospital and so she's built this entire relationship with the hospital that she's planning on doing that at uh but for her it's important that she has the option to have a medicated water birth so if she wants pain relief she can access that and up until this whole point it's there's sort of been fair enough it doesn't seem fair enough there's sort of been this like gray murky water where that's sort of been like agreed that she could do that and it's only been since i've really started shouting about this that she's realized that she needs to bullet out all of her questions get it really clear what her birth plan is going to look like that the hospital have actually indeed told her that they can't offer pain relief as part of the water birth scenario and that they were never able to do that and so she's now moved to somewhere that is able to facilitate her her wishes and and that made me feel really proud because ultimately I want the best for her she certainly wants the best for her you know it's important that everybody understands what is accessible um i think that's a really good example because that's that's a real world example from something that you've experienced just this week and it goes to show like obviously there's maybe the bigger part of me is still so sad that you had to go through a version that was so bad i don't think i'm ever going to get past that but what is amazing is that as a result you are and you are quite literally bettering the pathway for future mothers and you're being told that face to face by people who are expecting babies in the next week or two it's a it's a it's a real tangible and really real um thing that you that you've managed to do which i can't even put it into words but to answer my question only about you know if i was a young lady and i was thinking about having a family i probably would want to like stop you in the street and give you a massive hug and be like do you know what fuck i feel so bad that you've got to go through that shit but you've probably bettered my chance of having a smooth ride that's the reality of it that's how that's how big this whole thing has become it's become very clear in my mind and that's the reason why i wanted to take a video of leo because i was like you won't have a clue what's going on here but at some point you'll look back on this and you'll be like on that day my mummy was part of a national movement which is gonna i don't even know what the words are well hopefully also for our next generation if we ever have a daughter they won't have to go through the hell that we went through well and obviously for leo he has kids i feel like we need a massive holiday

48:21Louise: honestly right you wrote really powerful letters to leo this week and i know a lot of people have been in touch so i was wondering whether you could share a bit about what you wrote okay leo as we as we know he's very energetic passionate i think he's quite sporty in in many ways like the way he took to skiing when we went was incredible the way he took to his bike watching him kick a football is pretty impressive even his little burr and out burr and now i think yeah he's better than me with that the way that he like wraps his finger out and like does it all in one and i'm like oh my god dude you're quite good like you're quite coordinated so and this is kind of where i think i got it wrong on sports day because so i think i had this romantic version in my mind this was leo's final sports day at his nursery and you know i wanted it to go really well for him i wanted him to have the the best experience and i i had a conversation with him before or you know he'd been practicing for weeks with his friends and obviously he was telling us a lot about it and he was excited for it and one of the conversations we had was because i i wanted him to really listen in on the day listen to the instructions concentrate and if you do all that and have fun you might just win i didn't say that you would win i didn't want to say that it was all about winning but i was like you've got a good chance of winning mate because you're pretty fast then the next part of that conversation was then we can go and get football boots because he's been watching a lot of football and the world cup and games beforehand he's got this obsession with football boots with no laces and i was like okay well let's go and have a really good day out at sports day you crush it we'll go to the shops and I think that I was probably too literal with those words and that vision was kind of like on loop in my mind and then when it came to it Saturday and I I feel really guilty and this is why I wrote a letter about it but obviously for a child you know practicing for sports day with your friends in the garden or the park is very different to the actual day because you've got sidelines lined with picnic tables and banketing you know extra stuff you've got grandparents you've got siblings you've got dogs like you've got so much more noise around it and everyone's looking at you at the start line and I saw Leo crumble and didn't want to take part and he wanted to hide behind me and then he's hiding behind you and in that kind of moment I felt really upset for a few reasons one because it was just so different to the version i wanted for him but two i felt like i'd done something really wrong i felt like i'd shifted the focus away from him having fun and just messing around to he must win and therefore he'll get football boots and that's never where i wanted it to go i didn't know any of that and then the third part of it is i was watching him just that day on saturday and i was feeling super reflective for the rest of the weekend and it took me back to a moment when i was aged 11 starting at a boarding school in devon and it was again like it was like the start line it was like okay new school new surroundings but i didn't start at the start of term so i had to walk into an environment that was so kind of gelled and set up already i couldn't find my confidence and i just crumbled i think i lasted a term before my parents took me out but that feeling of pressure and that feeling of like fear i guess reminded me of myself and i think one of the things that i'm trying to do is is protect leo from feelings like that and i feel like on saturday i did a bad job and i don't i don't want to say that it's all on me and i don't you know i hope i haven't articulated it badly but I'm just giving you like a an honest review of of that moment and yeah it kind of ruined my weekend I can tell you're struggling to talk about it um we it was really it was it feels very real and very raw and it's a hard one to talk about because actually we've got to a point now where Leo our son's studying school in September and actually is becoming increasingly obvious to me in my mind that i want to really protect that boy and make sure that we're not talking about him in a way that's going to impact him and his confidence in his future and that i think i think that it's it's just it's really important to be sensitive around this i didn't know that you had said to him that he needed to come first that he needed to win.

53:01Louise: When? At the sports day. No, no, no. So you weren't listening. I didn't say that he needed to win. Well, you might just win and come first and then you can get football boots. It's like kind of conditional on him winning. He gets the boots. No, that's not how I said it. If you, you might win and then you can get football boots. I said, listen to the instructions, really concentrate, and you might just win. And then we can go shopping and get some football boots. That's a different, that's a different delivery. Okay. And that's how it went. This is more about, this is more about like where we're at in his like calendar and his year.

53:34Louise: Yeah. There's so much change happening around him, around him. And this is just a, just a helpful reminder for me. But I also think people listening, because we're going to be one of so many families who are entering the summer holiday period, knowing that in September, huge change is coming. No more nursery, no more like casual walk to nursery. it's going to be loading onto a school bus or a new driving route up the road to get to schools new classrooms new teachers new formats new uniforms there's so much change that's coming and i think there's a huge responsibility on us as parents to do what we can do over the summer to prepare him totally and i think that we're it's going to be a really really hopefully fun and lovely time that we have with him over the next couple of months to like really bed down spend some quality time and like build him up so that he feels super confident for that fresh start in September and to make the transition as seamless as possible obviously as parents who've had their kid at a nursery for so long it's a really emotional time he's going to do a graduation he'll sing some songs will probably feel so emotional and then obviously seeing a little boy in uniform it feels like such a big jump up and an important but exciting next step I think what I find really interesting about what you're saying there

54:54Louise: is is the responsibility I think what I want to get into because I find this really interesting is that what is your responsibility as a parent to encourage your child to do the thing that you know that they'll feel good at doing especially once they've completed it so say something like a race without being too pushy but giving the conf them the confidence to do it but then if they really don't want to do it because their anxiety is really bad just going you know what don't worry like it doesn't matter maybe next time because I think in this instance there was so much angst that was built up around it he then didn't want to do a couple of subsequent races but then for the last one I was like you know what I'll run it with you like and I was the silly like I was like the only mom that ran it with him and then tried to not make it into a big deal and we were like you know what if anyone asks like sports day was great because we don't want to put as your dad said in your that amazing uh in that amazing event that you hosted at the Allianz Stadium a couple of weeks ago at the moment you put a magnifying glass on something like it really really amplifies it for the child and so I wonder as someone that has suffered with maybe anxiety and a lack of confidence at school I know that you've mentioned to me before that you wish that your parents had pushed you more say in something like rugby because you wish you had the opportunity to maybe play semi-professionally but then equally do you feel like with other things you were you were quite glad that your parents were willing to take you out of a school that you were really unhappy at like what is how do you navigate

56:30Louise: the best route to go down in terms of pressure with a child well we're talking about four-year-old boy at the moment so the first thing is that i need to remove any expectation in my mind because He is only four. He'll be five in November, but he's still very small. So I can get excited and I can be encouraged by his ability to skid on a bike and kick a football. But that doesn't mean that, that doesn't, that doesn't, I shouldn't run with that. And I shouldn't formulate an expectation or like a, oh, well maybe he's, you know, got a real talent here. I should just let him dictate the pace and he can tell me what he wants to do nothing i've done so far has been i haven't forced anything on him but the uh we think maybe it's giving the opportunities and then seeing what sticks for him yeah a part of the thing that we struggle with with leo is that we baby him quite a lot and your parents have always said like it's amazing i don't know randomly when we festivalization they're always like louise it's really cool that you speak to children like they're adults so like i always had that relationship with sophie where i'd you know give them like a place at the table and maybe we don't do that enough with Leo I think the cool thing is that we were after sports day had finished and we'd got home we were just downstairs filling up the ice bath just one of those activities uh anything with the hose pipe he's pretty into and I just I kind of saw him he was in a lot calmer state at this point I just thought I'd take my shot to ask him what he was feeling at sports day and we just went through a bunch of questions anyway I asked him what went wrong and he said he felt shy and yeah I'm not going to keep going around this but the reason I'm so connected and moved by it and why it sent me into a weekend of feeling so reflective is because I me as a shy kid knows what that feels like and I don't want that for him so what i'm going to do moving forward is is really open up the dialogue in a more free way so if he feels something in a moment you know me rather than me stepping in be like no you can do it i'll let him tell me what he's feeling and he can dictate where he wants to go with it i think that's the that's the lesson i've learned in a particularly hard way i'm dramatizing it he still did have sports day and he still did run with his mom and he's still got the football boots by the way like i'm just giving you like a overly uh honest internal reflection because there's a there's a what there's a wider conversation around this this is more about the idea of pressure and pressure is is in my mind because of september and starting big school so i need to i we need to manage that whole thing so the summer for me is now going to be crucial for his development and how he feels and what we can do when those shy moments pop up so interactions with new people taking him to you know work events that i might have coming up with different things and just like giving him the opportunity to get comfortable yeah because he's so confident at home because we've really made it such a safe space where he can be totally himself and he can sing he can dance he can play he can have a good time he can you know ultimately be silly but we probably haven't worked on having the conversation with him about then how he needs to behave in a different kind of environment and you know and maybe it's kind of the coming together of two worlds at sports day because there's all of his friends that he's with and he's also with us and then he's with all these other parents and it is like a mishmash of his two worlds and I guess we're going to be doing a lot more of that because we're going to have PTA and we're going to have a lot of social stuff that we'll do together as he gets older.

1:00:15Louise: But I think it's, I think it actually is a, um, I didn't have to admit this, I just want to say that like, nothing's actually gone wrong. I feel like you're looking at me as if I've been done something wrong, but I haven't. No, I just didn't realize about the, you had the conversation being like, oh, you know, you could win this and it doesn't matter. That's also as parents, like we're so imperfect. I could, I would probably say the same thing and say, come on Leo you can win this like competitive spirit yeah and then that might every freaking parent said it on the day like go on Charlie you can win keep going yeah I guess they're literally shouting it at the top of their lungs yeah so Sonny won the egg and spoon race and his dad's like keep going you're gonna win and I'm like great it's not just me then yeah I think somewhere along the lines he just his confidence went and and as parents that both struggled with shyness as kids I think we're best placed to be able to help him with that i couldn't get on a stage we used to have this big assembly like grand prize giving thing at the end of each year and you used to have to go up and like get a cup we want a ballet cup and i literally was just it was the worst day of my life like i couldn't getting up on that stage was so intimidating but then even though by the way that's a celebration so that's a well done you've done something really good it's still all the attention remember those feelings that those are the feelings that i i'm trying to minimize impossible to avoid there's gonna be moments where he feels that but if i can minimize how he feels by building his character and his strength and confidence i'm just letting you know that's my mission bring it on anyway louise have you got a recommendation this week i do actually and it sort of follows on from much of the conversation that we've been having today around statutory inquiries there is a brilliant telegraph podcast called Bed of Lies and they do, they look into these various inquiries and there is one that is brilliant called Blood, which is about the blood, infected blood inquiry.

1:02:09Louise: It's so not the kind of thing that you'd listen to. Probably not, but it doesn't mean that it wouldn't be interesting for lots of other people. God, I'm going to be honest, I don't know about my recommendation. I've been in such a loop after sports day. Oh no. What can I, all right, here we go. These pants are from Zara and they are like a nice balloon. I thought you were going to actually get your actual pants out your boxes. Nah, nah, nah. I actually love the detail at the bottom there with the little button. Cute. So these are my Zara. Oh, so you can make them smaller? Dudes asked me, like, what trousers do you wear?

1:02:40Because I can't find stuff to fit in my thighs and whatever else. I just gave a recommendation. Zara Man. Don't even need to justify it, right?

1:02:47Louise: They're stunning. Ryan loves Zara and Carhartt. Lots of other cool things. He dresses very well. I think Louise needs a Snickers bar, everyone. I do I yes Jesney and her porridge so she's starting to get a bit gremlin thanks for listening guys so they stop Snickers at the shop be sure to download subscribe hit the like button please share to someone who might want to listen to the episode we'll be back next week yes we will thank you so much for listening I'm gonna go and get a Snickers I've not had a Snickers in so many years except for Snickers ice cream You're going to celebrate your victory with the Snickers.

1:03:56Whether you're crafting a one-of-a-kind bash or grabbing the essentials, Michaels has everything to make their big day legendary. Shop now and order ahead for delivery or in-store pickup. Michaels, everything to celebrate anything.