AIMS (Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services) was founded in 1960 by Sally Willington “to support women and families to achieve the birth that they wanted.”
Since the 1960s AIMS has campaigned tirelessly for improvements to the UK's maternity services, as well as supporting women and pregnant people, their families and others who support them both directly through our helpline, and by sharing information with our books, Journal and website resources.
In 2014 we became a registered charity with the slogan “There for your mother. Here for you. Help us to be there for your daughters.”
On launching our website in 2017 we adopted the strapline ‘Women Supporting Women’ to reflect our roots and identity as a feminist organisation. As such we recognise the oppression of women in the maternity services and have fought against this for over 60 years.
In 2017 we adopted our current mission statement (see below) to signal our support for all maternity service users. In line with this, we now use the strapline “Supporting you, Campaigning for all” to summarise the two sides of our mission.
The Trustees’ Annual Reports and accounts which we have submitted to the Charities Commission may be found here
Our candle image has been the AIMS logo since the late 60s. It represents our commitment to change, no matter how large or small the change may be. "It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.”
AIMS is a long standing member of the European Network of Childbirth Associations
You can read more about our history in
A future where every family has a positive maternity experience where they feel informed, heard and respected.
We support all maternity service users to navigate the system as it exists, and campaign for a system that truly meets the needs of all.
AIMS works towards better births for all by campaigning and information sharing, protecting human rights in childbirth and helping everyone to know their rights, whatever birth they want, and wherever they want it.
AIMS mission is supported by the following three pillars of work:
Providing objective, accessible, evidence-based information tailored to the needs of maternity service users and those who support them
Providing individual support and tools for self-advocacy
Campaigning and lobbying at national level for the service improvements that we believe are needed
How does AIMS know? We listen to organisations, individuals, and gather information from a wide range of sources.
AIMS has set out its position on a number of important maternity services issues in a series of position papers. These cover the following topics:
Our Advertising, Promotion and Endorsement policy commits us not to receive any funding or benefit from being linked with any commercial enterprise. This is to ensure that AIMS is, and is seen to be, wholly independent of any third parties in order to preserve our reputation for providing impartial information.
Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity statement reflects our determination to promote equality, diversity and inclusivity for everyone who uses the maternity services.
Our Environmental policy sets out our commitment to understanding, monitoring and reducing our environmental impact.
Our Data Protection and Privacy policy explains how we use and how we try to protect the personal data provided to us by our members, Volunteers, donors, and other contacts.
AIMS understands that there is a huge diversity of people who use the maternity services. AIMS seeks to support all users, so we try to make the language we use in our books, webpages and other materials inclusive. Much of the time we use ‘you’ – directed at the reader who will usually be the maternity service user. We use the terms mothers or women when discussing research or guidelines in line with what the authors have used. Elsewhere we try to use a mix of terms to reflect the fact that some of those who give birth do not identify as women, whereas others feel equally strongly that their gender is female and wish to see this recognised.
In our social media output, the same principles apply but it is not always practical to use a mix of terms within one post. Instead we aim to use a mix of terms across our posts and not favour any one to the exclusion of others.
For articles in the AIMS Journal, we make authors aware of our guidance but leave it up to them to decide what language they use. We consider that it is important to allow authors their own ‘voice’ and we try to ensure that a range of voices are represented.
AIMS accepts no commercial sponsorship so relies on membership subscriptions, donations, profits from AIMS Shop sales, grants and other fundraising to be able to continue our work.
To become an AIMS member or to join our free mailing list click here
To make a donation click here
AIMS is run by a small team of Volunteers, and we always gratefully welcome more. To find out about volunteering opportunities click here
Click here for AIMS contact details
