Editorials

‘Interesting times’ in transition to parenthood services 
Mary Nolan, Editor, reflects positively on a new home birth service and regrets that little progress has been made in tailoring antenatal education to parents’ expressed needs.


Childbirth education – Is it a lost opportunity for change? 
Dr Kate Levett and Ms Kerry Sutcliffe of the University of Notre Dame, Australia, and Professor Hannah Dahlen of Western Sydney University ask whether childbirth education is supported within the broader maternity system to achieve the best possible outcomes for women and babies.


We all need to step up to support moms 
Neel Shah, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Delivery Decisions Initiative at Harvard’s Ariadne Labs, argues that maternal mortality is fundamentally a failure of social support.

 
Galvanizing global political will in 2020: The Year of the Nurse and the Midwife 
Cindy L. Farley, Associate Professor, Georgetown University, USA, encourages advocacy efforts in concert with the World Health Organization’s global campaign to build a maternity care workforce that is competent, caring, evidence-informed, and provides all women everywhere with access to a midwife.

Articles

The power to transform: Freeing women’s instinctual potential for giving birth through body-centred preparation in pregnancy 
Janet Balaskas, Founder of the Active Birth Movement, shares her best practice ideas for educating women to work with their bodies to realise their potential to give birth to their babies powerfully and joyfully.

The Agony and the Ecstasy: Reframing birth narratives to humanise birth 
Alys Einion, Associate Professor of Midwifery and Women’s Health, Swansea University, UK, discusses how we might change current narratives to support women to reclaim their authority and autonomy over birth, acknowledging both its agony and its ecstasy.

 
What influences the use of pools for labour and birth? The POOL study
Researchers at Cardiff University have recently identified factors influencing the use of birth pools in the UK.

Difficult beginnings: How birth trauma impacts early parent-infant relationships 
Emma Svanberg, Clinical Psychologist and Co-Founder of Make Birth Better, UK, and  Julianne Boutaleb, Consultant Perinatal Psychologist, Parenthood in Mind, UK, discuss the impact of birth trauma on the infant and on the mother and father/partner, and offer suggestions for improving the parent-infant relationship.


Breastfeeding promotion in early years settings 
Elizabeth Smith, Breastfeeding Advocacy Lead for Scotland, with colleagues, Sarah Edwards and Amy Bryson, describe a project to introduce breastfeeding education in Early Years settings.

Knowing our values in perinatal education 
Kathryn Kelly, NCT Tutor, UK, explores what has been said about values in education, and considers the relevance to perinatal education, how values affect what parenting educators do and the importance of generating a personal set of values.

Antenatal education and informed consent: Some questions to ponder 
Elizabeth Newnham, Lecturer in Midwifery, Griffith University, Australia, discusses informed consent and its complicated ethical challenges, including how information about birth options is produced, provided and discussed.

Focus on Voluntary and Community Sector

NCT: The UK’s leading charity for parents 
Sarah McMullen, Head of Research, NCT, discusses the work of the charity since 1956 in supporting thousands of expectant and new parents each year and securing major advances in professional practice and public policy.

Sally's Column
Relationships, Relationships, Relationships 
Sally Hogg, Head of Policy and Campaigning at Parent Infant Partnership argues that birth should be a collaborative experience between families and professionals.