Exclusive:Bereaved mother to lead Holyrood maternity protest
Petition calling for changes to be heard next month
A bereaved mother who received an apology from First Minister John Swinney over failures in her care after she suffered a miscarriage despite repeatedly asking for help is to spearhead a protest at Holyrood aimed at improving maternity services across Scotland.
Elizabeth Crammond said she was left “traumatised” earlier this year after enduring her third pregnancy loss in the space of just 16 months. She experienced pain and bleeding and asked her local early pregnancy unit for help 60 times. When she was eventually seen by the NHS nine days later, she was told she had miscarried.
Mr Swinney said last month that he was “terribly sorry” for the experience that Ms Crammond and another woman, Katie Lyon - who had to wait seven days for her miscarriage to be confirmed - had gone through.
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It is understood a petition set up by Ms Crammond calling on the Scottish government to improve gynaecological, fertility and early pregnancy and maternity services will be heard by Holyrood’s public petitions committee next month.
The petition, which has attracted cross-party support and garnered 840 signatures is calling for the reinstatement of a duty of care on GPs to provide transitioning care for gynaecology, fertility and maternity care and support, and the introduction of a reactive auditing process to minimise delays and ensure the safe delivery of accessible, uniform services across health boards.
“There will be a protest at the Scottish Parliament so that the voices of women can be heard,” Ms Crammond explained. “There has been a lot of hushed silence around these issues for years. I hope to give evidence to the petitions committee, but it’s not just about me - there are big problems across the board.
“The petition has really taken off. A lot of people have been traumatised by what has happened to them, and they have found the courage to speak out about how it has affected them.”
“It’s going to be an upsetting experience, but we want people to be able to gather safely and ensure that their voices can be listened to by John Swinney and the government.”
Ms Crammond, from Kinross, said parents, families, and others interested in taking part in the protest could contact her on Instagram, and expressed hope that the event would shine a light on a catalogue of problems.
She said the existing system, which removes pregnancy care from GPs and mandates self-referrals, was resulting in preventable pregnancy losses, delays, and instances of medical negligence, all of which “damaged the lives” of expectant mothers and their families.
“In my experience, there appears to be a significant issue with the level of communication between different services and across health board boundaries,” she added. “There also seems to be a lack of appreciation or awareness within services about any potential risk factors that should require increased diligence when supporting expectant mothers.”
Detailing the pain and trauma of her latest pregnancy, Ms Crammond said that despite asking for help at the early pregnancy unit in Kirkcaldy’s Victoria Hospital, she had been told she did not meet the criteria.She went to pay for private scans before her miscarriage was confirmed
“My most recent loss was on Mother’s Day in March where I was forced to deliver my wee one after nine days of suffering,” she said. “I was pleading for help and I was a high-risk pregnancy.”
NHS Fife has since expressed its “sincere sympathy” to Ms Crammond, and said detailed reviews were undertaken by senior clinical and nursing staff from its early pregnancy, gynaecology, and maternity services. Ms Crammond has since escalated her complaint to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman.
NHS Tayside has apologised to her for a miscommunication between the health boards, which saw her pregnancy record accidentally closed following a previous miscarriage.
Ms Crammond said she had been told last month that health secretary Angela Constance wanted to meet with her, and was awaiting details. In the meantime, she said she hoped the demonstration would raise awareness of the myriad issues faced by bereaved families.
The planned protest will coincide with the work of a long-awaited nationwide review into maternity services across the country. The independent review, which began on Monday, will take a “whole-system” approach, drawing on data, evidence, and the direct experience of women, families, and staff at every level of care, according to the Scottish government
Ms Constance said the review will sit alongside ongoing inspections of every acute maternity unit in Scotland the identify “systemic changes” needed to strengthen services.
Ms Crammond has already been contacted by the review’s chair, Professor Christine McCourt, a maternal and child health expert, who has since replied to her, and she hopes that her views will ensure that miscarriage care is among those areas subject to scrutiny.
However, she joined other families in expressing doubts over the extent to which other women and families will be heard as part of the review process.
“My concern is that I have had to shout and push in order to get my voice heard, and there will be other people who will not do that,” she explained. “I hate saying it, but it’s only through upset and anger that action will take place.”
It comes as the government’s latest maternity care survey showed a decline in the proportion of women who felt they had a positive care experience giving birth.
Some 88 per cent of respondents to the survey rated their experience as positive in 2025, compared to 91 per cent in 2018. Ratings were lowest for care in a hospital or a midwife-led unit, rated positively by four in five women (80 per cent), similar to 2018.
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