Indian-origin woman opens maternity clinic for rape victims

London: An Indian-origin rape survivor has opened UK’s first maternity clinic for rape and sexual assault victims.

Pavana Amara has founded the ‘My Body Back Project,’ which has jointly established the new maternity clinic with the Barts Health NHS Trust in London.

The clinic, which was opened on July 29, will provide extra antenatal support with specially-trained midwives, psychologists and pediatricians.

If it proves successful, it could be rolled out across other UK hospitals as well reports deccanherald.com.

“They don’t have to say what happened, although they can if they want to. Whatever they feel is right for them. We will then book them an appointment and take it from there,” Amara said.

Although the service will be integrated into a regular maternity ward at the Royal London Hospital, women will follow a different antenatal route from the moment they are referred.

As well as being offered extra, longer meetings with specially-trained staff, women will be able to have more of a say as to how their birthing rooms are laid out and legal advice over their medical checks.

The clinic will also provide antenatal classes and breastfeeding advice, which has been altered for women who have experienced sexual attacks, and offer specialist gynecological examinations and mental health support after labour.

“There might be some characteristics that come across during the birth and it’s a shame because if we had known before we could have worked with them during the birth to help them have a positive pregnancy,” Inderjeet Kaur, consultant midwife at the clinic, told BBC.

Women can also self-refer to the maternity clinic by emailing the team to make an appointment.

Amara’s team has already received many international emails from women who cannot use the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) but she also plans to offer women in other countries one-off appointments in the form of video calls.

With more than 800 women using the service since it was launched in 2015, talks are under way to open a similar unit in Glasgow, Scotland.

Amara waived her anonymity as a rape victim to launch the My Body Back project. She was raped as a teenager and has also set up a sexual health clinic at Royal London Hospital for victims of sexual violence in August 2015.

Amara has met a number of women who told her of traumatic experiences during their pregnancies.

She said: “One woman was told by her rapist: ‘If you relax it’ll be over with quicker.’

When the woman was told the same thing in a healthcare setting, “the health professional was completely unwittingly and unknowingly echoing the words of the rapist.”

“It had a huge impact on the woman mentally. It’s things like this… very small, but very big for a woman who is vulnerable.”

Women often do not tell medical staff about their past, which can contribute further to their trauma. They can self-refer to the maternity clinic by emailing the team to make an appointment.

Amara explained: “They don’t have to say what happened, although they can if they want to. Whatever they feel is right for them. We will then book them an appointment and take it from there.”

She said support for women in other countries would be conducted out-of-hours in the team’s own spare time.

The team had received many international emails from women who cannot use NHS services, she said, adding: “We don’t want to leave them with no option, we want to do something for them.”

Amara says talks are under way to open a similar unit in Glasgow.

One rape victim explained how her body “went into complete shock” when she went into labor.

“I just couldn’t open my legs for the baby to come out,” she said.

“There was an emergency so they took me straight down to the operating theatre. It was very noisy and it was very busy.
“There were bright lights and just lots and lots of people around. And, I think for me, because there had been lots of people there in my rape and lots of people watching what was going on, it just brought back so many memories.

The victim, who wished to remain anonymous, believes the new clinic will help others.

“Just by virtue of walking through the door, people know something of what’s happened to you. So you’ve said it without saying it which is often the hardest thing,” she said.