MIDWIFE Kerry Phillips is on a mission to help drug-addicted mums-to-be in Gwent stay healthy during pregnancy.

She is the public face of a service set up to bring the best possible outcome for mother and baby.

"People in these situations have often been frightened to come to pre-natal clinic, worried their babies would be taken into care if they volunteered that they were drug users," said Ms Phillips.

"But there are serious issues to address because these women tend to suffer ill health and do not usually have good outcomes in pregnancy.

"They are much more liable to have premature deliveries and low birth weight babies, which can have knock-on health effects later in life.

"Women are chastised during pregnancy anyway, even for having a glass of wine occasionally, for instance.

"Drug users are chastised and women within that group are chastised even more. Throw a pregnancy in, and it's bell around the neck stuff.

"But this service is about saying to these women'you deserve a good pregnancy and birthing experience as much as anyone else'."

Ms Phillips is Gwent Healthcare Trust's lead midwife, substance misuse, a post created last May.

A midwife for 10 years, it was a SureStart project examining the needs of Newport women with drug problems in pregnancy that brought her to her current position.

"The appointment of consultant midwife Grace Thomas gave the project some gravitas and we have drugs services, social services and paediatric clinicians working with the service," said Ms Phillips.

"We wrote a set of guidelines for the care of these women, to make it more beneficial for them and their families."

Ms Phillips covers the whole of Gwent from her Royal Gwent Hospital base. Since last May she has been involved with 37 pregnant women with problematic drug use.

"Their lives can get chaotic. They can be seeking drugs through illicit means, have housing problems, debts.

"To expect someone at the top of the Valleys to get to the Royal Gwent by 9am for an appointment is not realistic. Mostly I go to them to do their ante-natal care at home.