I READ the front page story, Guardian, Maternity Ward Fears, March 13, with interest. However I must admit that I had to read the story four times to find out what you actually meant.

Birthing pools can only be used when there are no other complications during labour and most women are monitored at some point to check that baby is coping during contractions as normal procedure anyway.

If the hospital abandoned all foetal monitoring and allowed every woman to have a water birth and the neonatal deaths went up, surely this would panic parents-to-be? As for the devices making labour more uncomfortable, I was strapped to a monitor for the whole 10 hours of my labour and, as long as I knew my baby was being monitored, I didn’t care.

You don’t carry a baby for nine months only to throw caution to the wind at the last hurdle and risk your child’s life.

I have nothing but praise for the labour and delivery team at Warrington Hospital and would rather they erred on the side of caution than put lives at risk.

All any mother wants is a healthy baby. Who cares what you have to experience in labour to achieve that?

Mrs E Lander Culcheth