In the run-up to the general election the future of the NHS is in all of our minds and is one of the most crucial issues

The Maternity Action report in 2018 What Price Safe Motherhood?  documents the damaging effects on pregnant migrant women of charging for NHS maternity care.  It includes stories of destitute women who were presented with huge unpayable bills (often after pregnancy los...

There is a hugely important discussion happening about induction of labour at the moment. It's happening on many levels, and much of the conversation is taking place on the internet. Parts of this blog post have already been shared, but we felt that it was an important...

It saddens me how often writing around birth fails to look at the economic and political context in which we work. Yet that context so often determines what we see and write about. It influences the ideas that underpin research, books and comments on social media platf...

One of the concerns that those of us blogging on this website share is the way in which commodification, commercialisation and the push to sell products, pharmaceuticals and technologies can affect women’s experiences and care. This is something that Mavis Kirkham will...

There is a real problem throughout health and social services which is particularly evident in maternity services and that is the issue of care.

Care happens between people and is the response of one person to the needs of another. It must therefore always be appropriat...

This landmark Irish legislation, observing in full the rights of women and their families under the ECHR, has changed the public discourse about maternal death and has set a new international benchmark about accountability in tackling the issue of maternal death at sou...

I’ve had my eyes opened recently to the reality lived by pregnant, asylum-seeking women in Britain. A year ago I volunteered for a Cardiff-based organisation, Birth Partners, whose aim is to provide a companion during birth for women who have no one to accompany them d...

Mavis Kirkham reflects on the patterns seen so often around the closure of birth centres, following the publication of an article on this topic.

'Informed consent for giving brith in Hospital': this is the beginning of a document that one of our members, Beverley Beech, wrote several years ago in response to the way that women were being told lots about the risks of giving birth at home or in a midwifer...