Maria Velo Higueras is a midwifery educator and PhD researcher at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen (Scotland, UK). Originally qualifying as a midwife in Spain in 2013, she has developed the majority of her clinical and academic career in the UK. Since 2018, she has contributed to the improvement of maternity services by educating future midwives in feminist, woman/person‑centred care and autonomous midwifery practice.
Her doctoral research explores UK midwives’ perspectives on freebirth, the controversial choice to give birth without registered healthcare professionals. At the VIDM, Maria will present preliminary findings of her PhD research, exposing a paradox in current maternity care provision in the UK: women want midwives, and midwives want to be with-woman, yet both are constrained by systemic barriers that limit both women’s and midwives’ autonomy. This presentation invites us to reflect on what does freebirth reveal about birthing freedom, rising medicalisation, and the urgent need to reimagine “midwifery for all.”
