Articles

This page contains links to many of the articles I have written about birth and midwifery. All of the articles here are republished with the kind permission of the original journal or publication.  Please respect that they are copyright and for personal use only: you are welcome to link to them but please do not copy / paste / republish these on the web or in any other form. Thank you 😀  If you see my previously published articles on any site other than my own or that of the original publisher, the chances are that they have been posted without permission. 

Some of the articles are in text format rather than the original PDF, so you will need to obtain the original if you want to quote from them; the reference for each is at the bottom.  Finally, if you are looking for resources or articles on a specific topic, do use the search box as we use tags and keywords to try to help people find articles and other resources more easily.

Thinking Outside the Box…

I have now ceased writing this column.

• Untangling tocophobia (July/August 2017)
• The ungentle art of persuasion (June 2017)
• What’s the evidence for rebozos – part 2 (May 2017)
• What’s the evidence for rebozos – part 1 (April 2017)
• Pondering domesticity (March 2017)
• Do midwives kiss babies? (February 2017)
• The language of birth – crossing the Ts and promoting positivity (January 2017)
• A pot pourri of festive ponderings (December 2016)
• Exploring the exceptions (November 2016)
• Is this going to change your management? (October 2016)
• Questioning induction of labour in older women part 2 (September 2016)
• Questioning induction of labour in older women part 1 (July/August 2016)
• The madness of modern measurement (June 2016)
• Midwives matter more than monitors (May 2016)
• The importance of everyday birth wisdom (April 2016)
• Let there be mood lighting… (March 2016)
• The ALTE mysteries (Feb 2016)
• Whatever happened to the precautionary principle? (January 2016)
• A cautionary holiday tale (December 2015)
• Pondering placentophagy part 2 (November 2015)
• Pondering placentophagy part 1 (October 2015)
• How are you sleeping? (September 2015)
• Being clear about continuity (July/August 2015)
• Stimulating conversation part 2 (June 2015)
• Stimulating conversation part 1 (May 2015)
• Rethinking bugs part 2 (April 2015)
• Rethinking Bugs part 1 (March 2015)
• Alien environments and the hormone of love (February 2015)
• Synthetic Oxytocin – looking beyond the benefits (January 2015)
• Caring for ourselves (December 2014)
• Who safeguards mothers? (November 2014)
• Are emergency mnemonics help(err)ful? (October 2014)
• Does induction really reduce the likelihood of casarean section? (September 2014)

 

Articles from the original series of this column are available below

 

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Articles…

• Stepping Stones and Cervical Wisdom
• Passing yarns forward: unravelling the dimensions of knitting and birth
• Revisiting vitamin K and the newborn: what have we learned in a decade?
• Journeying with Women: holistic midwives and relationship
• Pondering the Post Birth Tea Break
• Screening and the Consequences of Knowledge
• The Age of Research
• Stretching the fabric: from technocratic normal limits to holistic midwives’ negotiations of normalcy
• Post-term Pregnancy: The Problem of the Boundaries
• Nil Nocere – doing no harm
• The War on Group B Strep
• Anti-D: Exploring Midwifery Knowledge
• Routine Antenatal Anti-D – An Overview of the Evidence
• Diagnosis of Complications – is there safety in uncertainty?
• Vitamin K: A flaw in the Blueprint?
• Perineal Pampering – before, during and after birth
• Further thoughts on the third stage
• Choice, liberty and public health
• Holistic Tensions: Is West really best?

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Editorials

Please note that I ceased editing and writing for this journal in September 2013.  It folded in May 2015.

• Thank you, Essentially MIDIRS
• The importance of the intangible
• The importance of illumination
• May Contain Tigers
• Interpreting Evidence
• Association, prediction and soothsaying
• The Continuum of Induction
• When is induction not induction?
• Deep Vein Thinking
• Citations chocolate and colons: what gets research read?
• Exploring Expert Opinion
• Media Mayhem
• When Less Might be More
• Normality and Goalposts
• Bad Science and the Limits of Choice
• Carbon Monoxide Testing: what choice?
• Reflecting on Risk Assessment

Reviews and Evidence Updates…

• Review: Daily oral iron supplementation during pregnancy
• Review: Cardiotocography versus intermittent auscultation of fetal heart on admission to labour ward for assessment of fetal wellbeing
• Review: Obstetric Cholestasis
• Review: Saving mothers’ lives: reviewing maternal deaths to make motherhood safer: 2006-08
• Review: Instruments for assisted vaginal delivery
• Review: Classification of urgency of caesarean section – a continuum of risk
• Review: Antibiotics for group B strep: are they effective?

• Evolution of the Theses: folic acid supplementation before and during pregnancy – Part 1
• Evolution of the Theses: folic acid supplementation before and during pregnancy – Part 2
• Evolution of the Theses: folic acid supplementation before and during pregnancy – Part 3
• Evolution of the Theses: monitoring fetal movement to assess fetal well-being

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Knowledge, Research, Evidence and Thinking…

• Seeing Women in the Numbers
• Sources of Evidence and Research
• Critiquing Research
• The Pie of Midwifery Knowledge
• The Art of Questioning
• Web Research – The Final Frontier

Story, Craft, Sharing and Top Tens…

• And that was that: my grandmother’s home birth stories
• Reclaiming the Art in Birth
• Challenging Births 1 (progress in labour)
• Challenging Births 2 (meconium-stained liquor)
• Challenging Births 3 (post term pregnancy)
• Top ten tips for facilitating a physiological placental birth
• Top ten tips for dealing with emergencies in the community
• Top ten tips on turning an assignment into an article
• Top ten technologies that have improved the lives of women and midwives

Thinking Outside the Box – the original series

• The changing face of A and P
• Obesity: naming, blaming, shaming
• Hips and feet should never meet
• Screening what are we missing?
• The one-stop evidence shop
• The Folly of Fully Part 2
• The Folly of Fully Part 1
• Euphemisms: good bad or ugly? Part 2
• Euphemisms: good bad or ugly? Part 1
• The perils of cyberchondria
• Sterile water blocks: is it time to talk?
• A midwife’s guide to birth fairies
• Weighing the Dangers Part 3
• Weighing the Dangers Part 2
• Weighing the Dangers Part 1
• Folic Acid the plot thickens
• Breech Inheritance: the flip side
• We’ve always done it that way 3
• We’ve always done it that way 2
• We’ve always done it that way 1
• The problem of product propaganda
• Vitamin K – the chaos continues
• A tribute to Tricia’s lab cats
• Birth by Numbers
• Distractive practice
• Red raspberries to the Nanny State
• Cord blood banking: who benefits?
• Learning from the Hen House
• Blaming the baby
• Folic acid: is there a problem?
• A decade of polarity
• Towards greener birth
• Birth and the earth
• When I am an old midwife…
• Holistic therapies: proof and plausibility
• Blood, barcodes and normalisation
• Women, wizards and patchwork quilts
• A tale of two women
• Curiosity and the caul
• Controlling the Capricious Cervix Part 2
• Controlling the Capricious Cervix Part 1
• Bring back the bed bath
• RCTs and Cessation Frustration
• Unpacking Sweeping Policies
• The Birth of Water Embolism
• The Flukes of Hazard
• The language of the complicated
• Supervision or attendance
• Is the APGAR a flexible friend?
• The Wisdom of Storks
• Twenty birthkit essentials
• Nutrition and the wisdom of craving
• The trusty toilet
• Deconstructing prophylaxis 2
• Deconstructing prophylaxis 1
• Cerridwyn and the Pixies
• What’s on the label
• Hepatitis B vaccination: Whose right?
• Research the hidden stories
• Giant breakthrough or great big stressor
• Risk the game of life
• Choice, control and the parenting police
• Professionalisation of the sacral rub
• Spin based practice
• A Crying Shame
• Body Wisdom birth by smell
• A Compromise for Change?
• What’s True, Pussycat?
• What’s in a Name?
• The New Pathology of Shortness
• Alternidurals
• Objectivity and Post-it Notes
• The Big Pregnancy Brain Mush Myth
• The Risk-Managed Birth Ball
• National Breech Rescue
• To Feel or Not to Feel?
• Are We Nearly There Yet?
• The Rhombus of Michaelis
• Pinard Wisdom 2
• Pinard Wisdom 1
• Epidural Fever?
• The World Wide Wonder
• The Birth of a Midwife?
• Number Crunching
• The Words We Use