Maternity & Midwifery Forum

Pandemic

Midwifery Feature Articles Midwifery News

Conversations around race, racism and ’unconscious bias’

Debra
Conversations around race, racism and ’unconscious bias’
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
‘Another Listen’ : Demands for respectful care across global maternity services
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 Sector News

Breastfeeding During the Pandemic

Paul
Breastfeeding during the pandemic
Breastfeeding rates in the UK are some of the lowest, globally, and the challenges posed to new parents have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many support groups for those breastfeeding disappeared overnight, and a lack of face-to-face support from both peer, charity, and professional supports developed. However, data published......
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Midwifery Sector News

Cut adrift: Pandemic leaves 16,000 pregnant women and new mothers without mental health support

Paul
Photo by Tiago Bandeira on Unsplash
Up to 1 in 5 women will experience mental health problems in pregnancy or after birth and two thirds of women will hide or underplay their illness. These figures can only be expected to have been exacerbated by the impact of Covid-19 and yet new research by the Royal College......
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Midwifery Feature Articles

Opportunity for innovation: COVID-19 and group antenatal care in Northern Ireland

Paul
Covid-19 has provided many opportunities for implementation of change at pace and has also facilitated reflection and review of usual processes with a much sharper focus on priorities. This is particularly relevant within the provision of maternity care and education of future midwives. A model of group antenatal care and......
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Midwifery Sector News

COVID-19 lockdown and the emerging impact on pregnancy

Paul
Pregnancy in COVID-19
As I write, the so called “easing of lockdown” is taking place in the UK, following the devastation of the COVID-19 virus outbreak. Over this time researchers and policy makers have worked together to gather data and undertake research to establish how the outbreak has impacted on women who have......
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