Factsheets
Knowing your rights and the law in pregnancy and childbirth is important. Our factsheets provide you with the latest information on your rights, where they come from in law, and how they are backed up in guidance.
Each link below goes to a new page where you can read the information or download a printable PDF document.
- Birth partners
- Choice of place of birth
- Consent: the key facts
- Disability and long-term health conditions and maternity care
- Human rights in maternity care: the key facts
- Making a complaint
- Mental capacity and maternity care
- Right to NHS services
- Social services and maternity care
- Unassisted birth
- Your right to a caesarean birth
- Your right to see your maternity records
- Your right to choose your midwife or doctor
We do not deal with maternity-related employment or benefits issues. Maternity Action provide comprehensive information on your rights at work, access to benefits, breast-feeding and chest-feeding rights.
Birthrights is a UK-based organisation and our factsheets cover the law in the UK, except where stated. They were last updated in August 2021 (written in May 2021).
Read our legal statement and copyright for terms and conditions of use of these factsheets.
If there’s an area we’ve missed that you would like to see covered, please get in touch.
We are grateful to Looseleaf Productions, the Hollick Family Foundation, the Baring Foundation and the National Lottery Community Fund for supporting our factsheets.
Do you work with pregnant women and birthing people?
Our training equips doctors, midwives and other birth workers with knowledge of the law and human rights principles, an understanding of how to apply it in practice, and the ability to communicate effectively with women and birthing people in a way that upholds their human rights. We offer a 10% discount to multidisciplinary teams.