100 MOTHERS REVEAL PROFOUND DAMAGE FROM PREGNANCY CONDITION PLACENTA ACCRETA SPECTRUM (PAS)

A hundred mothers have shared their accounts of developing Placenta Accreta Spectrum (PAS) during pregnancy, revealing systemic failures and a dangerous gap in maternity care.

PAS occurs when the placenta grows too deeply into the wall of the womb during pregnancy. When doctors attempt to remove the placenta after birth, a woman can haemorrhage within minutes. Undiagnosed cases can quickly lead to an emergency hysterectomy or death.

These women have shared stories including a baby who suffered a stroke during the birth and now has cerebral palsy, birth injuries during emergency surgery resulting in permanent damage to women’ s bladder and bowels, a nurse who had to leave the profession due to PTSD around blood.

Today’s data was collected by the maternity safety campaign Action for Accreta which launched in early 2026. It has has revealed:
61% said the condition was undiagnosed before delivery.
64% required major emergency surgery, with 30% resulting in emergency hysterectomies.
Of women which gave additional clinical detail, 73% (45/61) did not deliver at or were not referred to a specialist PAS centre.

Chloe Robinson, from Burnley, had significant bleeds throughout her pregnancy and escalating pain over her old c-section scar, but was not referred for assessment. She called an ambulance when she began bleeding heavily at home at 34 weeks gestation. During an emergency c-section, doctors discovered PAS. Chloe had an emergency hysterectomy to save her life, she lost six litres of blood. Her newborn daughter had a neonatal stroke and now has cerebral palsy.

“It was the middle of the night, they had to get several members of staff who were on call into the hospital because they weren’t prepared.” said Chloe. “My daughter had a stroke, which may have been caused by the traumatic birth, she now has cerebral palsy. I’m in therapy due to the trauma. If they had found the condition before, none of this may have happened”.

Erin Cooper, from Shefford, was hospitalised at 29 weeks gestation with recurrent bleeding. Doctors thought she had placenta praevia, a condition where the placenta grows over the cervix. She was not assessed for PAS. Erin’s waters broke following a large bleed. She was put under general anaesthesia and woke up in intensive care after 13 blood transfusions and an emergency hysterectomy.

Erin said, “It was like a murder scene. I now have PTSD around blood. I was a nurse, I’ve had to change jobs. I get panicky when I hear sirens. I can’t drive past the hospital without feeling like I’m going to have a panic attack. I feel a loss of my womanhood. I’m now going into early menopause and not a day goes by that I don’t think about being infertile at 33.”

Katie Buckingham, from London, was suspected of having placenta accreta throughout her pregnancy. She delivered her daughter in a planned c-section under general anaesthetic and was told it was not PAS because her placenta was showing as being ‘whole’. A week after the birth, Katie suffered a secondary haemorrhage, uterus infection and developed sepsis. She was brought back into surgery to remove tissue and blood clots from her uterus. The products removed were never sent to histology. In the weeks that followed, Katie continued to be unwell, in and out of hospital. At six-weeks postpartum retained placenta was found, requiring yet another serious surgery.

“If tissue had been sent for testing, it may have spared me the prolonged trauma of repeated A&E visits, further surgery, and weeks of uncertainty,” said Katie. “What I needed was not just treatment each time I collapsed into a crisis. I needed joined-up care, specialist understanding, and somewhere to feel safe.” Katie’s placenta was never tested for the condition, the only way a diagnosis can be confirmed but a specialist consultant confirmed it was likely PAS after all.

Cerri-anne Almond, from London, was having a routine planned c-section which became a life threatening emergency. PAS was only discovered in surgery. Cerri-Anne recalls, “As soon as the surgeons opened my abdomen, it became clear something was wrong. The placenta was abnormally attached to my uterus. The atmosphere in the room changed instantly. The operation was paused and a more specialised surgical team was urgently called in. I remember feeling an immediate sense of relief and gratitude that a level of expertise was able to take over. I’m one of the lucky ones”.

Kerry Annable, from Derby, was labelled an “over-anxious mother” when she asked for additional scans due to ongoing bleeds, pain and poor fetal movements. She was eventually sent for an MRI but it came too late, Kerry haemorrhaged at 33 weeks gestation before she got her results. She was brought straight into surgery for an emergency hysterectomy and full body blood transfusion.

“I felt dismissed, unheard, and completely unsupported at the moment I needed care the most,” said Kerry. “I’ve been pushed into early menopause, and I still feel let down by the system that was supposed to look after me. I later discovered they’d left part of my cervix inside me by mistake. I was told I didn’t need smear tests, when in fact I do”.

Women have also shared experiences of significant injuries due to emergency surgery, including bladder reconstruction and bowel perforation. Together, these stories reveal a dangerous gap in maternity care, with healthcare leaders failing to recognise the growing threat of Placenta Accreta Spectrum, which is linked to rising numbers of c-sections and IVF conception.

Recent data has revealed the number of mothers who experience a postpartum haemorrhage in England has risen by 19% between 2020-2025. Caesarean sections now account for 45% of deliveries in England, overtaking vaginal births for the first time. IVF births are making up a higher proportion of all UK births over time, increasing from 1.3% in 2000 to 3.1% in 2023. This means around 1 in 32 UK births in 2023 were via IVF.

The Government has confirmed 9 critical gaps in the national response to PAS, on record through 18 Parliamentary Questions answered in the past 12 weeks. There is no central data on PAS cases held anywhere in the NHS. No national visibility of the condition. information sits fragmented across individual trusts. No record of who has been trained in PAS diagnostics. No mandate for frontline training. No plans to introduce it. No plans to add PAS to NHS maternity safety dashboards. No mandatory national reporting, and no timetable to introduce one. No routine surveillance in MBRRACE-UK or the National Maternity and Perinatal Audit, meaning PAS-related deaths may currently be recorded simply as haemorrhage, obscuring the true scale of harm.

No national body holds formal responsibility for the condition at all. These are not bureaucratic abstractions. They are the reason 61% of women in this report went undiagnosed. They are the reason mothers haemorrhage in units that weren’t prepared for them. They are the reason babies are born into emergencies that could have been planned for. The system is not just underprepared. It is, by its own admission, blind and these hundred women are what that blindness looks like.

Action for Accreta is calling for critical clinical and policy reform:
Updated Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) Guidelines to reflect modern evidence and ensure clinicians are trained to identify atypical cases.
Establish national recording of PAS so clinicians and policymakers understand true prevalence. This includes creating a PAS category within MBRACE-UK. At present, deaths caused by PAS may often be recorded simply as “haemorrhage,” hiding the underlying cause.
Roll out a National PAS Training Programme for clinicians and ensure every maternity unit is prepared with PAS readiness protocols for undiagnosed cases.

Amisha Adhia launched the Action for Accreta campaign after five hospitals failed to spot she had PAS. Amisha says, “These hundred women and families are not the only story. They are the tip of the iceberg. There is no national database. No mandatory reporting. No one is counting. The system cannot see the harm it is causing and that invisibility is not an accident, it is a gap. We know what good looks like. We know how to diagnose this condition and prepare for it. But the guidelines are a decade behind modern reality, and without the infrastructure to track, train, and prepare every unit, best practice stays locked in a handful of specialist centres. Until the NHS and Government close that gap, mothers will keep walking into hospitals unprepared for them and 61% of women today are walking into a preventable crisis. The next woman is out there right now. And the system still doesn’t know she’s coming.”

Former Health Secretary Sir Jeremy Hunt is supporting the Action for Accreta campaign and has urged leading doctors to do more to help clinicians detect PAS. Sir Jeremy has commented: “Amisha and Nik have highlighted an important and under-recognised issue in maternity care. These stories and the Action for Accreta campaign highlight worrying gaps in how Placenta Accreta Spectrum is identified, recorded and managed across the NHS. Addressing these will require a more consistent, system-wide approach, including improved data, training and clinical preparedness. As Chair of the APPG for Patient Safety, I support their call for further action in this area.”

Action for Accreta has secured backing from eight major maternal health charities (Birth Trauma Association, Birthrights, Make Birth Better, MAMA Academy, AIMS, White Ribbon Alliance, Delivering Better, Placenta Awareness UK), patient safety groups, in addition Tommy’s and Sands Joint Policy Unit (JPU), who issued this independent supporting statement with their shared commitment for evidence based policy reform for maternal safety. An All-Party Parliament Group (APPG) meeting in Westminster to discuss placenta abnormalities is planned to take place this summer.

Kim Thomas, CEO of The Birth Trauma Association, has said: “”PAS is a dangerous complication of pregnancy, and terrifying for the women who experience it. As a charity, we have seen too many women experience deep psychological trauma as the result of PAS, particularly if diagnosis has happened late.

“In many ways, PAS is the perfect illustration of so many of the problems that beset maternity care: the ability to diagnose it correctly varies from trust to trust, definitions are not standardised, the incidence of the condition is inadequately monitored and women who
report concerns are too frequently dismissed as being over-anxious. The Birth Trauma Association fully supports Action for Accreta’s call to update diagnostic guidelines, introduce mandatory reporting and include PAS on maternity dashboards.”