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Midwifery Feature Articles

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Conversations around race, racism and ’unconscious bias’

Debra
There have been a number of reports over the past year pointing to poor outcomes for black and brown women during pregnancy and childbirth. Benash Nazmeen, Specialist cultural liaison midwife and Illyin Morrison, founder of Mixing up motherhood, discuss the race, rhetoric and “unconscious bias” across maternity services. They explore......
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Midwifery Feature Articles Midwifery News

Featured ‘Another Listen’ : Demands for respectful care across global maternity services

Debra
Kay King, Executive Director for the White Ribbon Alliance in the UK, highlights the work of the global “What Women Want Campaign” and points to the in depth “Another Listen” report. This gives insightful responses of women’s expectations for humanised and respectful care across the world. In the most recent......
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Midwifery Feature Articles

It’s Kick-Off on Maternity

Paul
A weekend announcement of £2 million for an RCOG review into preventing brain injuries during birth looks like a smart pre-emptive announcement ahead of today’s publication of the long awaited Select Committee report into Safety in Maternity Services. A few weeks ago NHS England announced £96 million more on maternity......
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Midwifery Feature Articles

PREGANCY & ALCOHOL: Lost in translation?

Paul
The WHO have issued a new document that comments on pregnancy and alcohol. We would all expect it to be a well thought out policy document based on established advice and good science. Yet it has provoked widespread heated and furious comment around the world. Most governments have long- standing......
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Midwifery Feature Articles

£733,000 for East Kent Hospitals Trust baby death. It’s not what you think.

Paul
It would easy to believe the recent fine for East Kent Hospitals Trust is another in a long line of high cost medical negligence cases but you would be wrong. Many midwives and maternity managers will have seen the headlines about the guilty plea by East Kent Hospitals, the big......
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Midwifery Feature Articles

Capturing the correct data for births at home

Paul
June 6th 2021 was global International Home birth day. It may have passed your notice; there was even no mention of it from the Royal Colleges in statements or press releases. Why does the day exist? The International confederation of midwives points to the reasons on Twitter with the reminder:......
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Midwifery Feature Articles

“Moral Distress” from Burnout

Paul
The Select Committee on Health and social Care , Chaired by Jeremy Hunt published its findings on Workforce Burnout and Resilience in the NHS on the 8th June, just as the stress of lockdown is to be extended a month. Commenting on the report – Andrea Sutcliffe CBE, Chief Executive......
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Midwifery Feature Articles

What We Need to Thrive?

Paul
In 2011, one of the Society of African and Caribbean Midwives (SoAC) leaders embarked on the journey of becoming a Mary Seacole Leadership. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr ‘Take the first step. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.’ Embarking on......
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