Three years ago this month, Birthrights burst onto the maternity scene. At our launch, we declared our intention to ensure that all women receive the dignity and respect they deserve during pregnancy and childbirth. Since then we've worked hard to do just that. Free, expert legal advice direct to women, respectful care training for midwives and doctors, research, campaigns and accurate, unbiased comment in the media... 

Providing clear and objective information on women's rights in childbirth has remained a priority. Our factsheets continue to be a popular resource for women and healthcare professionals. Our email advice has provided much needed assistance to hundreds of women and their families and with your help we hope to launch a telephone advice line. 

We have published groundbreaking research - such as the 2013 Dignity Survey - to improve the evidence on the importance of respectful care. This year we will be focusing on the rights of vulnerable groups of pregnant women, including migrants and those with disabilities. 

Birthrights reaches out to healthcare professionals through our own events, such as our Dignity Forum and Fighting the Fear study day. We speak at conferences and seminars across the country as part of our popular and expanding training programme designed to give practical tools to midwives and doctors.

We also know that it's imperative that the maternity service is designed to understand and respect women. So we continue to work closely with maternity leaders, the Royal Colleges and offer our perspective in relevant government consultations, NICE Guidelines and the National Maternity Review. 

We believe our legal expertise should be used to strengthen and uphold the protections offered to pregnant and birthing women. Working alongside the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, Birthrights intervened in a critical Court of Appeal case that questioned a woman's legal status while pregnant and her rights to make our own decisions. We were pleased that the court upheld these rights in their judgement. 

Through this work Birthrights has also been a consistent voice of reason on women's rights in the media, with appearances on Women’s Hour, the Today Programme, major TV news, radio, broadsheet and tabloids. 

It’s been a busy three years and we’re proud of what we have achieved. We have big plans going forward: expanding our training, commissioning vital research and expanding our advice service so that we can ensure that dignity in childbirth is universally understood and respected.  

But we can only continue this work with your help. As we celebrate our birthday please consider making a regular monthly donation to Birthrights as we defend the dignity of pregnant and birthing women. We ask you to continue to stand beside us for years to come.

Elizabeth Prochaska (Chair) and Rebecca Schiller (Director)






 

Policing Pregnancy
13 April 2016

Policing Pregnancy is organised by bpas, Birthrights and the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies. The conference will explore the tension that exists between efforts to promote awareness of risk to pregnant women and the problems of this approach, including the formal and informal policing of pregnancy. The topic of alcohol use in pregnancy forms the starting point and we are delighted to welcome Lynn Paltrow of the US National Advocates for Pregnant Women to open the event with perspectives from the US, which will then be explored in a European context.

Afternoon sessions will consider how legal and social developments threaten the principle of autonomy. A roundtable session will discuss how food intake has become a locus for policy-making through increasing concerns about obesity, and the conference will end with a discussion about the ways in which women's birth choices and experiences are constrained.

It should be of interest to practitioners, advocates, academics, policy-makers, journalists and anyone else who is concerned about the expansion of risk thinking and its implications for the autonomy of women.

Book tickets here

 

National Maternity Review