The trust said it was finding it hard to cover the on-call home birth service at night without risking staff working after a full day shift.

A spokesperson said: ‘Over the past two years we have been able to recruit more midwives to our main service, however, we have not yet been able to increase our home birth teams, which require significant skills and experience because of the degree of autonomy they require to support a woman at home during labour.'

The trust said its team of community midwives would continue to provide antenatal care in the community and midwife-led care would continue to be provided at Stroud Maternity Hospital and Gloucester Birth Unit.

Home births account for less than 2% of births (around 4-6 home births per month) in Gloucestershire.

Research by maternity rights charity Birthrights revealed two thirds (66%) of 119 trusts contacted had either had home birthing service suspensions, strict restrictions or frequent interruptions between October 2023 and November 2024.

Gloucestershire was one of 14 trusts named as being part of a national maternity investigation in September.