Drastic cuts in maternity services, including bans on home births and the cancellation of planned caesarean sections, could be introduced if swine flu develops into a major epidemic.
Hospitals are drawing up emergency plans for dealing with a shortage of midwives.
Home births would be refused and planned caesarean sections abandoned if there were not enough staff to carry them out safely.
Ante-natal tests to check the health of the expectant mother and check for foetal abnormalities could be delayed, or even stopped, under separate guidance being agreed by medical experts.
The Government has made planning assumptions that up to one in three people in Britain could become infected with the swine flu virus by the end of winter, putting huge strains on the NHS.
Many hospitals have introduced restrictions on visitors for new mothers to ensure that anyone carrying the virus, including partners, is barred from the site.
Some hospitals are considering going further, banning all children from post-natal wards, whether or not they have swine flu, as a precaution.
Lindsey Davies, the National Director of Pandemic Influenza Preparedness, said maternity services would try to keep things running normally for as long as possible, but compromises might be necessary if the pandemic affects staffing levels.
She said the Government would not issue blanket advice banning home births, or restricting caesarean sections, but leave hospitals to follow their own plans.
“When we lose a lot of staff it will be about how best to use those resources” she said.
“In that situation, it is much better to have more women in one place, so midwives can look after several of them, than to compromise safety.” Whittington NHS Trust, in London, and Newcastle Hospitals Foundation Trust are among many considering restricting the number of home births if pressures mount.
But Luton and Dunstable Hospital Foundation Trust said it hoped to keep its home birth service going, rather than adding to pressures on hospitals dealing with swine flu patients. A spokesman said that women who had booked caesarean sections might be asked if they would switch to a traditional birth, reserving slots for emergencies.
Belinda Phipps, from the National Childbirth Trust, said that during a pandemic, pregnant women were more likely to want a home birth, in order to keep away from hospitals.
Many women would be disappointed, she said, given that there are already not enough midwives to give a home birth to everyone who wanted one.
She said: “In a situation like this, what we would want to see is more women given home births.
“It would reduce the risk of cross-infection, but hospitals are between a rock and a hard place, because they are already short of midwives.”
Bringing more women into hospital would increase the risks of them contracting the virus, she said, but it was the only way to meet demand when there were more pregnant women than midwives available.
Hospital trusts said ante-natal tests could be delayed, combined or even omitted, under advice currently being drawn up by The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG).
They could be replaced by telephone consultations instead. Hospitals also said new mothers could be discharged more quickly after birth, and given fewer post-natal checks.
Administrators might be asked to help out on wards, making tea, or beds, so that midwives, nurses and trainees were able to devote all their time to new mothers.
The Government has drawn up planning assumptions which suggest that one in three people may develop swine flu this winter. The calculation would amount to 180,000 infections among pregnant women in the first 15 weeks of an epidemic.
Department of Health guidance shows that the timing of the current pandemic could not be worse for expectant mothers,coinciding with the peak quarter of the year for pregnancies, with at least 10 per cent more births between July and October than in winter.
The RCOG refused to disclose details of guidance it has been asked to draw up for hospitals, setting out how ante-natal tests might be restricted, in the event of a major pandemic.
Its last set of guidance, drawn up for the Department of Health, warning pregnant women to stay away from crowds and avoid unnecessary journeys, caused political embarrassment last week, leading to ministers attempting to water down the recommendations the Government had already endorsed.
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