All Aboard the Love Boat? The Royal Navy & Pregnancies at sea

Life in the Royal Navy is less about preparing for war, and more  like spending time on the loveboat. That seems to be the gist of quite a few stories in the media today which breathlessly relate to the news that since 2005 35 women sailors from 18 different ships have been airlifted to shore as a result of becoming pregnant and discovering this while they were at sea.

This news has been met with shock and horror by some commentators online, some of which seem rather in the 'internet hardman' school. At least one Daily Mail reader suggested that Chasity belts should form part of naval uniform for female members of the naval service (presumably in the RN kit record book it would be recorded as a ‘Torpedo Protection Belt’?).

Is the nation being let down by a bunch of serial shaggers in uniform or is perhaps the truth of the matter a little more complex than originally conceived?

Type 45 at sea- Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

The specific FOI that was referred to in the article, which looks like it originated in the Daily Star (alongside another story suggesting that the 2003 Iraq war occurred due to Saddam possessing ‘stargate’ technology and the US and allies wanting to prevent various aliens attacking the Earth) asked for the total number of females aeromedically evacuated between 2005 and 2019. Confusingly though there is also some suggestion that the Sun also got the story as an exclusive – to be honest, its rather hard to tell.

To start with, a sense of context is perhaps useful. This FOI is a well worn question which seems to have been asked quite a few times over the years. Humphrey has found similar articles from 2015 and 2017 and 2018, so its not exactly breaking news that the RN has had to occasionally return sailors ashore when they find out they are pregnant.

The numbers involved sound dramatic – a whole 35 women flown at public expense due to getting pregnant. In 2015 the number was 25, so in the last four years a whole 10 additional women sailors have discovered they were pregnant while onboard a ship.

Given that the Royal Navy consists of about 3,000 women at any one time (roughly 10% of the Naval Service) and that each year roughly 3000 people join the Royal Navy (lets assume 300 women based on the above figure), then in very big handfuls between 2005 and 2019 roughly 7500 women have served in the Royal Navy at different times. The figure is likely to be even higher still, but it’s a useful, albeit very rough, ‘guesstimate’.

This means that of the 7500 women, a total of 35 have discovered they were pregnant while at sea during this period. That works out at, roughly, 0.5% of the total force spread over 14 years. This doesn’t sound quite as dramatic as first made out to be.

The second point to note is that this is spread across quite a lot of ships over a wide period. These ships were at different points in their operational cycles, and no distinction is made between the individual at sea during a weeks training for FOST, or the individual airlifted ashore while in the Gulf.

While the papers are getting terribly excited about the fact that HMS DUNCAN, now deployed in the Middle East had someone lifted ashore, this discovery probably has had less impact than they may think – MOD statistics suggest that the airlift occurred at some point between 2012 and 2016 – which would imply that her current deployment is probably not affected, unless the RAF air transport force is even more delayed than usual…

The reason that the RN medically evacuates pregnant women from a ship is that a warship is inherently not a particularly great working environment to be pregnant in. Not only is it a working routine that could be tiring and challenging (for example doing defence watches of 6hrs on, 6hrs off), but it also impacts on the ability of the individual to do their job. For example could a pregnant woman safely be part of a firefighting or damage control party? From a very practical position, the ships feeding system isn’t geared up for pregnant women, nor are the right medical checks and support available onboard, and as anyone who has slept in the top bunk of a 3 berth will know, climbing in and out is a challenge at the best of times, and space is rather limited. Being pregnant and living on a messdeck would be less than optimal.

The Royal Navy takes its duty of care to its personnel seriously, and will take appropriate steps to land them ashore when the circumstances require it. For those so interested, the RN regulations for doing this can be found HERE.

It is incredibly common to find circumstances where personnel need to return home or ashore as a result of ailments, illnesses or changes to their health. Being pregnant is not the sole reason that the RN conducts aeromedical evacuation, and it is important to realise that this is not a case of ‘special treatment’.

It is far better to get someone who discovers they are pregnant ashore and then enable them to get the right help and support, and also move them to a shore job where they can prepare to take leave in due course. From an administration perspective, it also enables the system to find a replacement and send them out (if deemed necessary), to cover the gap that has emerged.

While the comments may be ones of shock and suggestions that somehow all the sailors are shagging merrily away while at sea, it is actually entirely likely that many of these cases had little to do with any boarding actions onboard. Ships in home waters will often be at sea on a weekly basis, allowing time for weekend leave to be spent with family. Other ships on deployment will usually have some form of standdown allowing the crew to take 2 weeks leave.

It is not beyond the realm of possibility for someone to go on weekend leave, or mid tour leave, have a very good leave and return to the ship without knowing they were pregnant. It is also possible that biology could play a part here too – not every woman knows or realises they are pregnant – as the US Navy sailor onboard the USS EISENHOWER found when she unexpectedly gave birth while at sea in 2016 while the ship was conducting air strikes against ISIS.

The final point to note is that aeromedical evacuation sounds like the ship going to flying stations and the brave helicopter pilot is forced out of his bunk and bundled into the cockpit to fly to shore. In fact the usual stock FOI query (and they all do seem to follow a certain pattern) asks about aeromedical evacuation and not whether the women where aeromedically evacuated from the ship itself.

It could well be the case that some women were flown to shore by helicopter and landed in the UK. But equally it could be the case that they went ashore when the ship came into port and flew home on an RAF flight – which would then be considered an ‘aeromedical evacuation’. To the MOD an ‘aeromedical evacuation’ involves ‘the medically supervised movement of patients to, and between medical facilities by air transportation’.  Its worth carefully reading the FOI answers to note the heavy caveating in defining the circumstances in question. The key phrase in the FOI is ‘returned at the first convenient opportunity’.

Some may worry about the cost, but by 2017 the MOD had estimated that the average cost per head of each evacuation was £631.98 – by this sum, we can work out that between 2005 and 2019 the MOD has spent about £22,000 on landing pregnant women ashore. In the same time frame it will have spent the best part of £500 Billion on Defence as a whole.

The reality is that if you recruit a workforce where many of the people are younger and sexually active and of childbearing age, then the chances are that you’ll get the odd pregnancy. What matters is not the fact that women got pregnant, but the fact that the MOD strives to put their safety and welfare first. This is about being a responsible employer, and is not in anyway an acceptable reason to suggest that women do not belong at sea.

There is a quite unpleasant undertone here in some of the online comments from sexist dinosaurs, who cannot cope with the idea that women serve as equals at sea, and that there is some kind of dreadful set up here. It is apparently awful that a woman can fall pregnant and only discover it when at sea and the sooner these people are taken off ships, which can go back to being manly ships for manly men, carrying Jack and his often STI afflicted genitals from port to port the better for the nation as a whole. These views rightly deserve to go the way of the dinosaurs for, unlike women, they have no place in the modern Royal Navy.