This blog post has been reposted from Olvindablog - on postmodern midwifery and women

It's a brilliant post about normal birth and why it is important and how to support it.

Let's facilitate physiology and each woman's Unique Normality (quotes below from the blogpost by Oli).

"Unique Normality “takes account of each woman’s labour in the context of her pregnancy, her family clinical, psychosocial and emotional history and the story of her life. It sees birth as an ‘ordinary drama’ — not as a crisis, and not as a routine event, but as a one-off exciting event, full of possibility. In this approach, the task of the midwife is to maximize the possibility of normal birth, accepting that it will not always happen. Maximizing the possibility means opening up options to women, rather than closing down their expectations, and working with colleagues including peers, [supervisors of midwives], risk managers, obstetricians, neonatologists, and anaesthetists to see each labour as an opportunity for personal growth and development rather than a threat of complaint and litigation.” (Downe, 2006)"

"Evidence demonstrates that public health measures to address health inequalities, and more women choosing to access midwife-led care, with continuity of carer, are key to a safer system with better outcomes for women and babies (Sandall et al, 2016; Guardian, 2015)."

The post was written by Oli, a UK midwife, in response to:

"a deluge of disinformation and inflammatory, inaccurate and non-evidence-based reporting on the ‘dangers of normal birth’, from which women need protecting, and the so-called ‘cult’ and ‘overpursuit’ of normality. Midwives were supposedly backpedaling and backing down on normal birth".

The link to the full post is here: