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A consultation from October to January over plans to remove doctor led births got comments from about 0.1 per cent of the adult population of Solihull.
This was despite a march through the town when the plans were first announced, a petition of 3,000 signatues and a Facebook group with more than 4,000 members.
The move would leave only midwives to deliver low risk births, about 300 out of 2,700 that currently take place at the hospital.
Solihull mums who need a doctor would instead have to go to other hospitals, such as Heartlands in Bordesley Green and Good Hope in Sutton Coldfield.
Some 64.4 per cent of those who responded backed the plan for Solihull, which bosses say is essential to ensure enough doctors are available for sick newborns.
An NHS report said: “The outcome of the consultation has clearly been strong support for the
maternity strategy. It is therefore proposed that the strategy remains appropriate.”
Managers are expected to approve the downgrading next Wednesday.
All births stopped in April 2010 over concerns about the lack of doctor at Solihull, with medics having to also cover Heartlands and Good Hope. A midwife-led unit opened in July.
This was backed by the National Clinical Advisory Team of UK safety experts and councillors charged with overseeing the consultation.
Bosses want the new arrangements to provide more community care for women in poorer areas of East Birmingham and increase the number of home births.
Meriden Conservative MP Caroline Spelman asked bosses to look at providing higher skilled nurses to take on more women but this was discounted.
Solihull Liberal Democrat MP “expressed disappointment with the announcement that
the Solihull unit was to be downgraded before any consultation with residents”.
After the May 2010 General Election, Mrs Spelman said she was “now much more hopeful of a better outcome for maternity services”.
Health secretary Andrew Lansley said in 2007: “You can't provide choice in childbirth to mothers by closing down their local maternity units.”
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