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Yesterday I marked Mother's Day with an apologetic phone call to my mum, having failed even to send a card this year. Fortunately, I have an understanding mother who knows I've been pretty preoccupied thinking about the mums I work with, who seem to have been largely forgotten. That's why the Refugee Council collaborated with Maternity Action to launch a report about women's experiences of pregnancy and motherhood in the asylum system.

Dana, fleeing the Taliban after they publicly condemned her second marriage, arrived in the UK eight months pregnant and so unwell that she was immediately hospitalised. She told us about her two-month journey overland: "We were treated like animals – no food, no clothes, sometimes they put us in a container for maybe three or four days, we don't eat, just dirty water dripping in the side. When I came here, the doctor thought my baby was dead because it had stopped moving."

Dana was one of 20 women we spoke to. Listening to her describe her journey to the UK, it's not hard to understand why asylum-seeking women have such high-risk pregnancies. Many have fled torture, sexual violence, or female genital mutilation or have poor health stemming from undiagnosed conditions; these can all affect a woman's pregnancy. This is why the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) highlights refugees and asylum-seekers as an especially vulnerable group in its maternity care policies. But in direct conflict with this, the UK Border Agency (UKBA) shows little concern for women's pregnancies in its processes and procedures, and pregnant women are by-and-large treated like all other asylum seekers.

This is a particular problem when it comes to UKBA's policy of dispersing asylum seekers on a "no-choice basis" in areas of the country where there is "a ready supply" of housing. This means women are moved across the country, often many times during their pregnancy. The women we spoke to had been ripped away from family, friends and their midwives, often very late in their pregnancies, putting them and their babies at risk. These practices make it impossible for health professionals to provide continuity of care.

Afya, from Eritrea, was three months pregnant when she arrived in the UK and, like Dana, had endured months hiding in lorries; she was exhausted and undernourished. Her arrival in the UK did not signal safety, rest and an opportunity to take care of herself – instead she was moved six times around south-west England and Wales before giving birth, including in and out of a detention centre. She was moved again shortly after she gave birth. She said: "It would have been better if I could have stayed in one place. Moving around made me sad, tired and unhappy."

The UKBA's press statement, in response to our research, claimed we had ignored a change in their policy for pregnant women made in July 2012. In fact our whole report was written in light of this policy change. The new policy states that women will not be dispersed during their final month of pregnancy – which is undoubtedly a step forward – but the new guidance does not address the majority of other problems that we identified in our research such as women being moved multiple times during their pregnancies. One woman, Mimi, was moved into a UKBA hostel during her ninth month. When we spoke to her – two days before her due date – she did not know the number of her local hospital, or even where it was. Yet up until 37 weeks, she had been receiving maternity care in another hospital, which had all her records and where she felt secure.

Dana on the other hand, pregnant with her first child, went into labour without even having had a conversation with a health professional about what to expect. Like many other pregnant asylum-seeking women, she gave birth without a birth partner or interpreter – an inevitable risk if women are moved about like luggage, separated from the father of the baby, sometimes not staying long enough in one place to make a friend, or register with a new GP.

The Refugee Council and Maternity Action have launched a campaign calling for the government to change its policy to ensure that pregnant women are no longer put at risk. Whether you marked Mother's Day yesterday or not, take a moment to join our campaign today, and speak out for those mums in the UK who are not allowed to enjoy the dignity in pregnancy that the rest of us expect.

Anna Musgrave is women's advocacy officer at the Refugee Council