Tamba welcomes new guidelines to help women with multiple births

National standards to ensure mothers giving birth to twins or more receive an appropriate neonatal risk assessment prior to birth have been welcomed by the Twins and Multiple Births Association (Tamba).

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence has produced new guidelines in it publication –  Multiple pregnancy: the management of twin and triplet pregnancies in the antenatal period.

These will ensure health care professionals guiding the labour of women giving birth to more than one child will be aiming to avoid the risk of assisted birth or caesarean section.

For each pregnant woman there will be a ‘core team’ of specialist midwives, obstetricians and ultrasonographers, all of whom must have experience of managing twin and triplet pregnancies.

Chief executive of Tamba, Keith Reed, said: “Tamba has campaigned for guidelines like this, which will undoubtedly produce better clinical outcomes, as well as reducing anxiety for those women who have been told their pregnancies are ‘high risk’, and we are delighted that our campaign on their behalf has been successful.

“We will continue to work to make sure that clinical teams are prioritising implementation, and will be campaigning to ensure every maternity unit in the UK embeds these guidelines in their own care pathways and to spread the word so that all families expecting more than one are aware of the guidelines and the treatment that they deserve to get.”