Speaker: Jessica Brumley
Facilitator: Caitlin Goodwin
Midwifery has played a critical role in maternal and newborn care throughout our history, yet its integration into the healthcare system has been marked by challenges and transformation. This presentation explores the historical trajectory of midwifery. The current landscape highlights a growing recognition of midwifery’s benefits, including improved maternal outcomes, reduced interventions, and enhanced patient-centered care. Despite this progress, barriers such as restrictive regulations, inconsistent legislative policies, and disparities in access persist.
Looking ahead, the future of midwifery integration depends on policy reform, interprofessional collaboration, and public awareness to strengthen midwives’ role in addressing the maternal health crisis. A strong professional association is critical in advancing the midwifery agenda and strengthening the profession.
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Speaker: Bronwyn Rideout
Facilitator: Zalfa Dinah Khairunnisa
Background: During pregnancy and early parenting, autistic adults contend with increased sensory demands and services ill-suited for their needs. How Aotearo’as unique maternity system fares with this cohort is unknown due to the dearth of local data.
Methods: 15 autistic people who gave birth in New Zealand between 2012-2022 were recruited through social media. Participants predominantly identified as female but represented varied backgrounds and childbearing experiences. Using Kathy Charmaz’s constructivist grounded theory, verbal and written semi-structured interviews were conducted by the lead author, an autistic midwife-researcher, utilising inclusive practices.
Results: Autistic birthing experience in Aotearoa shares many of the same hallmarks found in international research, including heightened sensory sensitivities and late diagnosis. Participants reported varied benefits from continuity of care models but also demonstrated significant self-determination in navigating childbearing by prioritising their physical health, mental well-being, or the needs of others during decision-making and support-seeking.
Conclusions: This study has highlighted various challenges autistic parents negotiate during childbearing and the transition to parenthood. Midwifery-led, continuity-of-care models can ameliorate some challenges, but decision-making was chiefly informed by the participant’s awareness of their individual physical, mental, and domestic needs. The findings will assist in the provision of enabling and empowering care to autistic clients and can improve the morbidity and mortality rates seen in the broader autistic population.
Speakers: Erin Gilmer and Zahra Mirzaei
Facilitator: Isabella Garti
Background: In December 2024, the Taliban banned women from attending midwifery and nursing institutes in Afghanistan, cutting off the last remaining avenue for women’s higher education. This policy threatens maternal and newborn health in a country where the maternal mortality ratio at 620 deaths per 100,000 live births, one of the highest in the world. Afghan midwives are essential frontline providers, particularly in rural areas; therefore, sustaining midwifery education is vital to ensuring continued healthcare access for Afghan women and families.
Purpose: In response to this crisis, Kabul Online Medical University in Exile (KOMU-E) has launched an innovative online midwifery education program. This initiative aims to preserve academic continuity for Afghan midwifery students, sustain their engagement with the midwifery profession, and provide a critical lifeline for education and wellbeing.
Focus of Presentation: This presentation explores the implementation of KOMU-Es online midwifery education initiative. Grounded in the Afghan midwifery curriculum and aligned with ICM Essential Competencies, the program is delivered by experienced Afghan midwives in the diaspora. Currently, the program focuses on theory-based coursework while KOMU-E explores strategies for safe and effective hands-on learning and clinical experience. Importantly, the program integrates psychosocial support to address the mental health impact of educational exclusion.
The session will highlight the challenges, strategies, and impact of delivering midwifery education in a highly restrictive environment. We also hope to connect with audience members with experience in blended learning models for midwifery education.
Speaker: Yvonne Meyer
Facilitator: Celine Lemay
Sages-femmes dans certaines publications. C’est le cas pour l’inscription de notre activité professionnelle au patrimoine immatériel UNESCO où, dans l’annonce en français, le mot sage-femme est absent du titre. Comment sont présentées les sages-femmes ailleurs ? Neuf documents ont été repérés qui ont pour titre l’art, les soins, la pratique, les sciences ou la profession de sage-femme. Les résumés de ces documents seront présentés, ainsi que l’analyse réalisée, basée sur les critères de soins centrés sur le patient (Rycroft-Maloine, 2004). Les résultats montrent que toutes ces formulations sont polysémiques et qu’elles n’ont pas exactement la même portée. Par contre, toutes présentent haut et fort les sages-femmes et ce qui les caractérise. Si UNESCO avait titré « Les soins de sage-femme : connaissances, savoir-faire et pratiques », les sages-femmes seraient visibles partout dans le monde francophone.
The theme of the intervention is motivated by a regrettable problem of visibility of midwives in certain publications. This is the case for the inclusion of our professional activity in UNESCO’s intangible heritage list, where, in the French announcement, the word sage-femme is absent from the title. How are midwives presented elsewhere? Nine documents have been identified that deal with the art, care, practice, science or profession of midwifery. Summaries of these documents will be presented, along with the analysis carried out, based on the criteria of patient-centred care (Rycroft-Maloine, 2004). The results show that all these formulations are polysemous and do not have exactly the same scope. However, they all make a strong case for midwives and what characterises them. If UNESCO had published the title « Les soins de sage-femme: connaissances, savoir-faire et pratiques » (‘Midwifery: knowledge, skills and practices’), midwives would be visible throughout the French-speaking world.
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