Then Sack The Ones Who Couldn't Follow The Guidelines, pour encourager les autres...

Nearly one in five pregnant women in the UK were forced to wear a face covering during labour, according to research by a charity, despite official health guidance saying they should not be asked to do so.

Strange that people so keen to follow official covid guidance to the letter don't seem to have read this far, eh? 

The guidance says that women should not be asked to wear a face covering of any kind during natural labour or during caesarean births because of the risk of harm and complications. Rosie, 39, from London, said she felt as if she was dying because she was in so much pain during advanced labour with her third child, born in December. Yet maternity staff instructed to keep on her face mask.

And of course, she's not allowed anyone with her, under covide guidance, so she's at their mercy... 

“I was frightened that amongst everything else that was happening I was then going to be sick inside the mask,” added Rosie, who has a condition called emetophobia, which is a fear of vomiting. At one point she ripped off the mask but was told to put it back on.

Nor is her's an isolated case. Far from it: 

“Someone put the mask on me and I said: ‘You can’t be serious’, and she replied: ‘Yes’, and then I remember having a contraction,” said Titherington, who has flashbacks of her traumatic birth and has been unable to wear a face covering since because it triggers the memory of struggling to breathe.

She ended up having an emergency caesarean and was told to wear the mask during the entire surgery, which goes against the official guidance.

So...what does the professional body have to say about this? Well, as expected, weasel words and excuses: 

Dr Mary Ross Davie, director of professional midwifery at the Royal College of Midwives said since the start of the pandemic health professionals have had to respond to rapid changes in guidance. “For many on the clinical frontline they have found it really difficult to keep up to date with what the latest guidance is,” she said.

Have they? Oh, the poor dears! Just like...well, everyone else. 

“I think sometimes what has happened is that some health professionals may not have understood when someone is in labour they should be exempt from wearing a mask.”

Then perhaps calling them 'health professionals' is a bit of a misnomer, eh? 

An NHS spokesperson said: “Guidance to hospitals has been absolutely clear that women who are giving birth are exempt from wearing a facemask, and every hospital in England should be following this.”

Well, they aren't. Time to make an example of them.