SAM EDWARDS had the best experience she possibly could have giving birth to her daughter Tabitha at Malton Hospital in July.

She says it's upsetting to think that her baby might be one of the last people to be born there.

"They gave us all the options, and actually at our first appointment we were with one of the Malton midwives," said Sam, 25. "She gave me the information and let me make my own decision. I always wanted to go to Malton. My sister-in-law had had a good experience there and it just felt right.

"I didn't want a home birth, not for my first, it would have been too scary. I live in a terraced house which is very small for a birth and I would have had all my family around. I wanted to go out of my own space to somewhere comfortable, where I knew people, and I had got to know most of the mid-wives by then."

She said she wouldn't have been happy going to a bigger hospital like York. "I've heard they can be a bit forceps-happy there," she said. "There's more intervention in big hospitals because they can do it and it makes it quicker. I felt there would be a conveyor belt attitude."

Sam took full advantage of the facilities at the unit - using the birthing pool which she said shortened her labour by a good two hours.

After a 15-hour labour Tabitha was born at 6pm and slept for a long time. "The midwives offered for me to stay the night but I went home to my own bed," she said. "Although that was nice, I think it would be better if they said you had to stay in, even for just one night, because you don't want to be making decisions at that stage."

It took Sam and her partner Dean five minutes to get from their home in Norton to the maternity unit. "I didn't have one contraction on the way," she said.

"If there is a problem, they can always blue light you off to Scarborough, but if you go straight there it is a long way to go when you're in pain and uncomfortable, especially on a hot summers day when the A64 is full of traffic."