MUMS, dads and children marched 37,000 feet to raise awareness of their bid to bring full maternity services back to Huddersfield.

Around 60 supporters of the campaign MOMS (Move our Maternity Services) walked 37,000 feet around Greenhead Park on Sunday.

The distance is roughly equivalent to the seven miles from Huddersfield Royal Infirmary to Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax.

Despite major protests, consultant-led maternity services were moved from HRI to Calderdale in August.

The campaign was organised by Alanna Delahaye and Glynn Bates, of Golcar, whose daughter Maisie Bates, died at just two days old in September after last-minute complications with the pregnancy.

Alanna, 22, had been due to give birth at the Huddersfield Birth Centre, but had to be taken to Calderdale when late tests revealed Maisie’s heart rate was dangerously low.

Maisie suffered brain damage in the minutes it took to resuscitate her. Alanna and Glynn decided to turn off her life support on September 10.

The couple believe Maisie would have survived if Alanna had been able to go to HRI to give birth. They launched the MOMS campaign to put pressure on Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust to return consultant-led services to Huddersfield.

Alanna said: “The walk has definitely been a success. I hope the hospital trust gets the message.

“We really wanted to highlight how far it actually is and get people together because we hadn’t done anything since January.”

A MOMS group set up on the social networking website Facebook has more than 6,400 members and a petition launched on the 10 Downing Street website has been signed by more than 2,000 people.

Alanna said: “Support for MOMS goes up every day. We’ve have a lot of people – even those we don’t know – sending us messages and agreeing with us that it’s absolutely ridiculous that the services have moved.”