Maternity (Obstetrics)

Are you pregnant or looking to have a baby? Our team of friendly, highly trained and approachable consultants, midwives and maternity care assistants are on hand to provide high quality levels of care in a modern, homely and relaxing environment.

Maternity Services – Visiting

Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has now relaxed visiting restrictions in maternity services.

Two birthing partners per woman/birthing person are welcomed on our delivery suites and Midwifery Led Birthing Units (MLBU).

One partner can accompany a pregnant woman/person for the entirety of their antenatal appointments.

Visiting restrictions on our triage, antenatal and postnatal wards across both our maternity units (Bedford and the Luton and Dunstable Hospitals) are also relaxed.

Visiting slots are as follows:

• 9am to 9pm – one birth partner or other adult support person only
• 3pm to 8pm – two adult visitors per woman/birthing person (this includes the birth partner and one other – both need to stay the same) as well as siblings

We are unable to facilitate children visiting or visitors/supporters overnight at this time.

This is applicable to both Bedford Hospital and the Luton and Dunstable University Hospital maternity units.

Birthing partners are generally not required to wear facemasks unless this is their personal preference.

We have to be extremely careful about our visiting restrictions, especially when there are higher incidences of infection cases locally. As such, it is important to note that the relaxing of restrictions could change at short notice if it becomes unsafe to continue. We do still need to be mindful that coronavirus is still with us and there are precautions that we still need to adhere to, to not only protect patients but to also protect our staff, keep them well so they can continue to provide safe and essential quality patient care.

For further information on changes due to COVID-19 please visit the maternity COVID-19 webpages.