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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Inspiring VBAC Stories: Maggie’s Birth
I met Kate and her husband Simon when they did my VBAC Your Way course earlier this year. Kate had two little boys, both born via Caesarean section in the UK and she was extremely keen to avoid a...
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Why Midwives Love a Good Birth Plan
This week I am thrilled to feature a guest post from midwife, Kate Visser. Birthwell Birthright (BWBR): Many people are very cynical of the whole concept of a “birth plan”. Pregnant women hear all too often from their friends...
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The ethical responsibility of childbirth educators
I’ve just returned from Sydney where I taught a Lamaze Childbirth Educator training program. Part of the course is to explore the Code of Ethics for Lamaze Childbirth Educators. Quite ironically, I received the following email while I was...
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Sunrise strikes again – early hospital discharge is not the problem.
Sunrise co-hosts Monique Wright and Andrew O’Keefe have jumped on the bandwagon yet again (or perhaps more accurately, their producers did) with a story that aired on Channel 7’s Sunrise on January 8th. Click here to watch it. The...
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Why the witch hunt of midwives is alive and well in 2016
The latest attack on Australian midwives has come from Australian Medical Association Queensland president Chris Zappala who stated in a media release this week that research showed perinatal death rates doubled when women gave birth under midwife-led care compared...
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