North Devon expectant mothers are on their own as of today.

Population of North Devon: 101,000 to 103,000 people,

Data published in November 2024 by North Devon Council, shows the number of people living in the region who were between the ages of 16 and 49 was 34,867.

(By contrast, the number of people age 50 and over was 47,321.)

Assuming half of that 34,867 were male that’s around 17,500 women of childbearing age and even then that’s including the very upper end.

Across England and Wales, the average age of mothers giving birth is 31 years.

The number of people between 24 and 34 years was 10,418 so around 5,200 women.

In any typical UK community, roughly 11 to 14 women are pregnant at any given time per 1,000 total residents about 1.1% to 1.4% of the total population.

That means that at any given time, fewer than 250 women in North Devon will be pregnant and they will, of course, be at different stages of their pregnancy.

The is about a temporary closure of services for safety reasons due a shortage of skilled staff.

In reality, the number of women who are going to have to go to Exeter to give birth rather than give birth in Barnstaple hospital will be low.

As others have pointed out the length of journey is no different to what is typical for other areas.

I gave birth to my three children in the N.D.D.H maternity unit and back then it was excellent..
(my youngest is now 32)

The thread is not intended to be a sob sob story about poor North Devon compared with the rest of the country. As another poster said, it serves to show that the level of service nationwide is appalling and getting worse.

We have already established that 1300+ births occur each year at Barnstaple, so I am not sure why you deem that figure low, Graphite. Yeovil handles a similar number of births.
We know that the closure has been called temporary, so maybe we should return to this thread in 3 months to see if the service has been reinstated? Personally I would be surprised if that were the case.
Lastly, no one is making this a competition between different areas in the UK.

Shinamae

I gave birth to my three children in the N.D.D.H maternity unit and back then it was excellent..
(my youngest is now 32)

One of DD's friends has recently given birth in the NDDH after having previously delivered at the RDE a few years earlier. She found the experience at Barnstaple far superior to Exeter.

So an average of three or four births a day. That is low compared to my local hospital where the average is 12 a day and around 4,500 a year with a total population only twice the size of North Devon. That’s probably because the population is younger.

The numbers are important because is indicates how many women might have to go to Exeter to give birth while the temporary issues are being resolved.

By the law of averages most births are going to be normal. The average labour is 12 to 24 hours for a first-time birth and 8 to 12 hours for subsequent births so there is enough time to get to Exeter.

Surely it is better to have a longer journey to a hospital where staffing levels and expertise are deemed safe than a closer hospital temporarily deemed unsafe because of staff shortages.

To repeat what Maizie said earlier,

The hospital says it has made the decision because of unsafe staffing levels. It seems to be between a rock and a hard place.

What solution would posters suggest?

It remains to be seen how long it takes to resolve this. From what I read, community midwifery, scans, ultrasound clinics, antenatal outpatient clinics, and birth planning services remain operational so this isn’t a backdoor attempt to close all maternity services.

So if Exeter handles 10 births a day and 4 additional ones rock up from N Devon, I'd say that's quite some surge in their figures whichever you look at it.

We've already discussed MaizieD's point about staffing levels further back in the thread.
No one said it is a backdoor attempt to close all maternity services did they?

I actually didn't know until I was in labour until it reached the second stage, which then went very quickly. The first stage can be ambiguous with false alarms, and feel exactly like normal late-pregnancy discomforts. It is common to miss them entirely.

MartavTaurus

www.theguardian.com/society/2026/aug/10/maternity-cuts-devon-women-stark-choices

This isn't just an inconvenience to mothers to be, it's stressful and quite frankly dangerous.
If you don't know the rural geography of Devon, patients will, as of August 11th, have to travel over 90 minutes to give birth. In peak tourist season too, so that's on a good day! I'm sure these decision makers only have half a brain.

It’s much the same thing around here it’s either Watford, Stevenage or Harlow . Nothing in between . It’s rare these days for a baby to be born in hertford the county town .
The paramedics told me this when my daughter was born. She arrived quicker than expected we were at home !. The second one was born in the garden city that’s now just more like clinic set up these day

DD1 turned up at Harlow to be told there was no room that night. Eventually they said she could go on the postnatal ward but her husband could not stay. He was sent home, 45 minutes away. Luckily he sat in car park because DD delivered an hour later and he would have missed it! Yes, it's pretty dire everywhere.

Unfortunately any hopes of the unit reopening on 29th September as promised have now been dashed. The future isn't looking very promising.
Oh well, I think we saw that coming.