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: Linda Sweet
Facilitator: Red Miller
Background: A migrant is a person who moves from one place to another, especially to find work or better living conditions. Some migrants come from refugee backgrounds with well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. From 2019 to 2021, over 47% of women who accessed maternity care through Western Health were born in a country other than Australia, with over 60 languages identified as their first language.
Aim: To explore the culturally specific maternity care experiences of migrant women and to consider ways to improve care.
Methods: Four focus group discussions were conducted with women of three language groups: Oromo, Dinka, and Arabic. The focus groups were co facilitated by the research team and a bi-cultural worker, with an interpreter in attendance. Discussions were audio recorded, professionally transcribed and thematically analysed.
Results: Thirty-one women participated. All had at least one pregnancy in Australia. Key themes included communication (and miscommunication), cultural misconceptions, racism, loss of culture, and desire for continuity of care. All the women found maternity care in Australia generally satisfying and respectful; however, they offered some tangible ideas for improvement.
Discussion: Addressing cultural misconceptions and combating racism within healthcare settings is imperative to create a welcoming and inclusive environment for migrant women. Effective communication, accommodating linguistic diversity, and cultural nuances need to be prioritised. This includes providing interpreter services when needed and employing culturally competent staff who understand the traditions, beliefs, and practices of diverse communities.
Speaker: Sarah Esegbona-Adeigbe
Facilitator: Constance Odonkor
A woman is more likely to die in the UK during pregnancy if she is Black, a recent migrant and has had inadequate pregnancy care. Cultural influences on reduced attendance for pregnancy care has been connected to Black migrant maternal deaths for twenty years. My study’s findings show that migrant Black women are not asked about their culture when attending for pregnancy care and they either choose to hide or reveal their culture.
A persons’ culture is colourful and complex, an aura that is visible and invisible. The seen and unseen nature of culture makes it difficult to decipher an individuals needs, as culture may be practised differently depending on the environment and wider society.
Culture may influence all aspects of a persons’ life including their health seeking behaviour and healthcare decisions. The missed opportunity to explore migrant womens’ cultural needs during pregnancy means that important aspects of their health needs are unexplored and therefore, not included in their pregnancy care provision.
Speaker: Kate Greenstock
Facilitator: Ally Anderson
Merely existing as a midwife in much of the world is a political act, flourishing collectively is our outrageous next step!
At its core, flourishing means staying connected to ourselves – and to each other – even as we face the psychological challenges of this work. Experiences of trauma exposure and moral injury connect us as global midwives despite our differing contexts. And yet they so often disconnect us from ourselves and the families we serve.
Our time together will acknowledge the realities AND explore how we go on sustaining ourselves in midwifery by proactively connecting to our purpose, our power, our body, our breath. Just as we ground and encourage a woman in labour, come be grounded and encouraged!
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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