We were glad to work with Channel 4 News for a report on 5 March 2025, where disabled mums Rameeza Mehmud (from WinVisible), Rupy Kaur Roberts, Carly Tait and Marie Tidball MP, spoke out about discrimination in pregnancy and childbirth. Watch the video here (captions).
Marie Tidball MP, who describes upsetting treatment before her daughter was born, has launched a campaign for disabled women’s maternity care.
Rameeza Mehmud says: “Every time that I’ve been pregnant, I’ve hidden it from the world, because of the stigma. ‘Why are you having more children? Is one not enough for you? How will you cope?’ It’s always been a fight – fighting for access, fighting for your needs, fighting for social services. But when I first gave birth to my child, that’s the first time in my life, that I felt like this is mine and no one can take this away.”
The voiceover by Victoria Macdonald says: “Through WinVisible, she has begun meeting up with other local disabled mums”.
Rupy Kaur Roberts (above right) says: “I remember at the time I was dead worried about telling everyone I was pregnant, because of those assumptions, like ‘How are you gonna look after your child? You require 24-hour support yourself, so who’s going to be looking after who?’ And it’s quite a horrible feeling, isn’t it, when it’s supposed to be such a joyous time.”
Former Paralympic athlete Carly Tait (above left) says: “People were really happy for me. But there were people who said, ‘Congratulations – have you had the sign-off that you’re OK to give birth? I ended up tapping into my competitive side: I can do this – I can give birth.”
The broadcast (during International Women’s Week) was alongside research by Professor Hannah Kuper of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, that disabled women in the UK experience even worse maternity care than it is for women generally, and a higher risk of the baby dying as a result. Rameeza said that by the time healthcare staff took seriously that her baby was not moving, “they had two minutes to get the baby OUT”. We’re following up this important issue.
Most of the mums interviewed by Channel 4 News have cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy can be caused by our non-disabled mums lacking proper care during delivery, so the baby is deprived of oxygen — two sides of the same coin.
Our Disabled Mothers’ Rights Campaign (DMRC) also highlights that social services are called in on us in maternity wards as “unfit mothers”. We’re putting forward a Charter of Rights — signers and supporters welcome. See the DMRC page here
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