A paper published in an Australian midwifery journal has proposed a woman-centred framework for documentation and communication when women decide to decline aspects of maternity care. This is an important issue, as the authors note in the background to their…
Happy Spring! And happy Autumn, to our friends down under! I’ve not written a blog post for today, as I’m hoping you’re all enjoying some time off, but I wanted to say hello to anyone who was online, whether at…
The subjects of ‘post-term’ pregnancy and induction of labour have been close to my heart for a long while, and were the topic of my PhD thesis (2008). This post lists all of the resources on this topic that are…
“Four centuries ago, the Catholic Church declared heliocentrism to be heretical, banned all heliocentric books, and ordered Galileo to refrain from holding, teaching, or defending heliocentric ideas. A similar effort is taking place today. It seeks to suppress debate over…
These days, lots of people are creating websites for their businesses, and they want content to put up on their site to keep readers interested. In my case, it’s birth-related businesses, but what I’m about to say relates to blogs…
Over the years, I have been repeatedly asked by student midwives for a reference to an article that gives basic information on how to use a Pinard to listen to a baby’s heartbeat, either to supplement learning in practice, or…
Over the years, I have been repeatedly asked by student midwives for a reference to an article that gives basic information on how to use a Pinard to listen to a baby’s heartbeat, either to supplement learning in practice, or…
“When the culture of any organization mandates that it is more important to protect the reputation of a system and those in power than it is to protect the basic dignity of the individuals who serve that system or who…
After I mentioned Alan Greene’s TED talk on delayed cord clamping in a blog post, I ended up playing it for a friend on my laptop, and hearing it again reminded me of something that I had intended to write about…
The stork is well loved as an image associated with birth and midwives; a good number of midwifery practices in the English-speaking world feature the word in their name, and images of the birds often appear on logos and web…
“Factors that have eroded midwifery skill are largely political; embedded in midwifery laws in the form of practice guidelines … A model of perinatal care that offers insight, continuity and intuition; respects birth as an altered state; shows reverent curiosity…
Two senior doctors have written to the British Medical Journal to commend them for publishing a recent debate which highlights the way “in which the doctors supporting monitoring seem to cherry pick evidence” (Bewley and Braillon 2018). During this debate,…
Since I got back from our latest trip, I’ve been catching up with the research, blog posts and thinking that went on while we were away, and I found so many interesting things that I decided to write a summary…
“Being a midwife is similar to being an Apache pilot. That may sound strange, but it’s true. One may suppose flying gunships in combat as far removed from delivering babies as can possibly be, but the truth is, there are…
A woman whose husband recently called 999 when he realised that their baby was going to be born at home – unexpectedly, after a relatively fast first labour – was given some interesting advice. “Take one of your shoelaces out…
A year or so ago, a pregnant woman asked me a really good question, which I answered briefly in a blog post (Wickham 2016). ‘What is it called,’ she asked, ‘when you’re fearful of medicalisation?’ I couldn’t come up with…
“What’s an Aqua APGAR?” After I wrote a blog post sharing the results of some new studies highlighting the benefits of water in labour, a few people contacted us to ask for more information on the Aqua APGAR, which was…
When I returned to my desk after the holidays, I read a fascinating piece in the British Medical Journal by Semsarian and Moynihan (2017) who told the story of John, a 32 year old man whose father had given him…
The results of two recent research studies have added to our knowledge about the benefits of water for labour and birth. The first, a Swedish comparative study by Ulfsdottir et al (2017), found that women giving birth in water had…
My working day got off to a slow start on the day I originally wrote this article, mainly because of Wikipedia! Within minutes of turning my computer on, I was contacted by a woman whose births I attended a few…
As someone who is fully subscribed to the notion that ongoing learning and growth are intrinsic, essential and joyful elements of living, searching out new knowledge is a big part of my daily life. Some of that knowledge gets turned…
When I first wrote the article that this blog post is based upon, I had just finished reading a superb book, The Tyranny of Numbers by economist David Boyle (2001). In it, he critiqued our society’s reliance on and obsession…
I’ve shared several studies relating to the benefits of yoga on social media recently, and earlier this summer I had the pleasure of joining the YogaBirth teachers for their annual retreat, in order to offer an update on birth-related research.…
One of the great things about being allowed to write in midwifery journals is that, when you come across an article or idea that pleases you, annoys you or just makes you think harder than usual, you can share those…
“The freedom to have a homebirth – whoever you are, wherever you live and whatever your situation – is much too precious to give up as if it were nothing.” – Ina May Gaskin Gaskin IM (2017). Choosing freedom…
Over the last few years, evidence-based practice has become a standard expectation of Western health care systems, rather than a topic whose value is debated by clinicians. Concurrently, rules of convention have developed, and it has now become politically correct…
“Corporatization of medicine has led to a phenomenon found in all or most industries in a corporate system: the “productivity campaign.” This is an effort to get employees to work better and faster, although the “better” quickly falls away when…
It’s my birthday today! 😀 So first and foremost, a big thank you to my mum, who gave birth to me (at home and, in a feat of statistical improbability, on my due date) quite a few years ago now!…
A study has looked at birthing outcomes of 323 women who used castor oil as part of an attempt to induce their labour, with interesting results. The study was carried out in the US where, in contrast to countries like…
I’ve been really amazed by the number of people who have been in touch to thank me for the two-part article that I have shared over the past few weeks about the evidence for rebozo use. (You can read part…
Last month, I shared the story of my own introduction to the rebozo: a Mexican shawl whose popularity has grown in midwifery conferences and workshops to the extent that it is now used and taught by a number of midwives…
Parents need good information to help them to spot the signs of infection in babies. I wrote about this in my blog post about the updated UK guidance on preventing early onset group B strep (GBS) disease (Hughes et al…
A recent study has added to our knowledge about the views and skills of midwives who have expertise in protecting women’s perineums during birth. The research, known as the ‘MEPPI study’ is described as a qualitative exploratory study and the…
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has published an update to their guidance on preventing early onset group B strep (GBS) disease. The guidance calls for all pregnant women to be provided with appropriate information about GBS to support…
A student midwife recently asked, ‘Do you have a good explanation of ‘person-centred care’?’ Yes, thanks to a recent editorial in the British Medical Journal. “People-centered care moves away from traditional care models where care is determined by uniform procedures…
A recent research paper (Walker et al 2017) discusses the question of how professionals develop skills in facilitating physiological breech birth. This is an important question because, although there is a demand for physiological breech birth, many women find it…
“Heavy-handed persuasion tactics and the aggressive language of some medically-focused papers and websites on the subject of vitamin K are not only inappropriate, but they harm relationships and make it less likely that parents will reach out for help if…
It has long been thought that ‘prevention is better than cure’ and many of the things we routinely do in our lives are aimed at preventing disease and danger. If we get into a car, we put our seat belt…
I am so excited to announce that the second edition of Vitamin K and the Newborn, a book written to help parents and professionals understand the evidence and the issues surrounding the administration of vitamin K to newborn babies, is…
About 20 years ago, it was while sitting on the floor among friends at a Midwifery Today conference that I first encountered the use of the colourful woven shawls that Mexican midwives call rebozos. During a workshop led by midwife…
“Parenting is, hands down, the most challenging thing you will ever do. It is scary, troubling, enthralling and exciting. It requires long hours, Herculean patience, trust and thousands of other skills and characteristics that our kids deserve and demand. As…
“Although evidence based medicine has reshaped medicine, nursing, and allied health professions into knowledge driven, scientific (sometimes pseudoscientific) professions, it fails to tackle the multifactorial reality of what actually happens to patients—the “art” of helping humans. The science of evidence…
I often hear midwives and birth folk lamenting the way that one-sided, fear-based, sometimes mysogynistic and frequently inaccurate depictions and representations of birth permeate modern culture, and I share their concerns. Participants in my workshops and online courses note the…
My grandmother gave birth to all of her babies at home. There were simply no other options (Lee and Wickham 2000). But by the time her daughters were ready to birth, just a couple of decades later, they were offered…
What is the BRAN analysis? I have heard you speak about this, but I can’t find a simple explanation of what it means that I can share with my clients. Can you help? Yes I can. I did write about…
Midwives have done a lot of reflecting on their language over the last few years. While visible changes in practice inevitably take a while to evolve, there is a clear movement in the progressive midwifery literature from use of words…
A review article written by Danish doctors and published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology has stated that the benefits of vaginal seeding “do not outweigh the risks”. This paper and the inevitable news stories which have been…
‘Language is important and influential. I request that the Journal stop using (and letting authors use) the term obstetric when talking about midwifery care. Obstetrics is what obstetricians do, midwifery is what midwives do, and maternity care is what we…
The authors of an updated Cochrane review entitled ‘Antibiotic prophylaxis for operative vaginal delivery’ have drawn the same conclusion as in previous versions of the review: that routinely giving antibiotics to women who have forceps or ventouse births leads to…
It occurred to me recently, while presenting on the topic of labour progress, that there is a blog post that I use frequently as a reference when I’m speaking about labour and birth – in particular, the question of what…
“The Victorian parliamentarian and novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton declared, “A reform is a correction of abuses; a revolution is a transfer of power.” Patient centred care began as a correction of abuses, a response to patients being treated like “imbeciles and…
I’ve ranted before about what I see as the inappropriateness of the term ‘shared decision-making’ in medical circles. Calling a decision a ‘shared decision’ implies that the practitioner gets a say in what the person chooses. Yet when it comes…
For a few years now, I have been blogging regularly about birth, midwifery and my work in these areas and, as a result of this, I have learned quite a bit about how the Internet works. Blogs, for instance, come…
Australian researchers have published a review and meta-synthesis of twenty research papers exploring women’s experience of vaginal birth after caesarean in a variety of birth locations. This is an important and valuable piece of work because, although we know that…
Another study has suggested that the differences in birth outcomes experienced by women of size may be due as much to provider attitudes and biases as to any intrinsic difference or disadvantage. Ellekjaer et al’s (2017) research, carried out in…
When I post and discuss birth-related articles in my newsletter, blog or on social media, people often ask, “how can I see the full text of this?” I know this is a problem for many people. Because I work completely…
A study carried out in Finland has provided more evidence of how we can use fetal rhesus group testing in order to offer anti-D prophylaxis only to those rhesus negative women who are carring rhesus positive babies and thus reduce…
“Do you know of any good resources on the subject of questioning/declining vaginal examination? I’m thinking of vaginal examinations in a number of contexts – well woman exams, vaginal examinations in labour and especially at the end of pregnancy, as…
“Do you know of any good resources on the subject of questioning/declining vaginal examination? I’m thinking of vaginal examinations in a number of contexts – well woman exams, vaginal examinations in labour and especially at the end of pregnancy, as…
I recently read the most fascinating paper. Called ‘A critical analysis of Australian policies and guidelines for water immersion during labour and birth’, it aimed “to determine how water immersion policies and/or guidelines are informed, who interprets the evidence to…