First they came for the birth photographers…
Following an announcement earlier this week by Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital that they were essentially banning professional birth photographers from attending and documenting births, there was – not unexpectedly – an explosive outcry on social media. Brisbane-based birth...
Details
Australian Midwifery News – Winter 2018 issue
I am thrilled to announce that my article, Stop! I Want to Get off the Conveyor Belt of Birth has been published in the new issue of Australian Midwifery News, Australia’s only national magazine dedicated to midwives. To have...
Details
Stop! I want to get off the conveyor belt of birth!
You know when a series of seemingly unrelated events coincide, and then you start to realise that in fact they aren’t unrelated at all? Yeah, well that happened to me this past weekend. I was scrolling through Facebook late...
Details
We need to talk about Birth Trauma. Now.
August 14 – 21, 2017 is Birth Trauma Awareness Week. First of all, it profoundly saddens me that we need to set aside even one day of the year, let alone an entire week to raising awareness of birth...
Details
You’re Not Allowed To Not Allow Me.
Birth and politics, like women and politics have been at the cornerstone of some of the tensest historical and social upheavals of all time. From the Suffragettes of the late 19th and early 20th Century who were literally willing...
Details
Childbirth: It’s time to stop the fear-mongering!
My initial reaction to Claire Harvey’s article; Childbirth: Why are we going back to the medical Middle Ages? (The Daily Telegraph, July 31st 2016) was one of anger and frustration. Here we go again, I thought. Yet ANOTHER article...
Details
The Tsunami of Interventions
If you are somewhat immersed in the birth world like I am, then you’ve probably come across the term, “The Cascade of Interventions”. Sadly, for many of us in the birthing biz, this is an all-too-familiar term; describing the...
Details