Labour is what a woman says it is, she owns it.

Nadine Edwards discusses some of the problems encountered when we try to research elements of birth.

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 during birth. Almost all of the women referred to us by the specialist midwife are recently arrived asylum seeking women. As a birth activist, I’m not a midwife or a doula. Most of my experience of childbirth, ap