#Barnstaplebaby highlights plea to save services from controversial axing
Controversial plans to axe maternity services in North Devon have led mothers to protest on social media.
They're using the hashtag #Barnstaplebaby to share photos of children and stories of traumatic births.
The campaign hopes to show how much the under threat maternity unit at North Devon District Hospital is used, and needed.
No proposals have yet been released but a leaked document suggests sweeping changes - which include only having maternity units in Plymouth and Exeter.
Parents like Jo Backhouse from Lynmouth are urging NHS bosses not to close the District's maternity unit as she believes her daughter would have died if they'd been forced to travel to Exeter.
More than 17,000 people have signed a petition, and campaign group Save Our Hospital Services are fighting against proposed cuts to maternity, paediatrics and acute care in North Devon including the closure of more than 600 hospital beds across the county.
It's also thought that maternity will be under threat in South Devon when the full Transformation Plan is released for consultation later this Autumn.
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Campaigners say the proposed changes will effect everyone in Devon regardless of where they live because if services are cut in North and South Devon and transferred to Plymouth's Derriford Hospital or the Royal Devon and Exeter then those centralised services will be under pressure more so than ever before.
The leaked document is called the Sustainability and Transformation Plan and had only been released to the medics and administrators as a solution to a projected half billion pound NHS deficit in Devon by 2021.
The North Devon NHS Trust says a final decision is still along way off: