ABSTRACT

This new edition outlines how sustainability can be incorporated into midwifery practice, education and research. It has been thoroughly revised to include new models of sustainable midwifery practice and new chapters on rural midwives and rural communities, social justice, and compassion.

Environmental awareness and sustainability are vitally important concepts and, as a low environmental impact healthcare profession, midwifery has the potential to stand as a model of excellence. This international collection of experts explores the challenges, inviting readers to critically reflect on the issues and consider how they could move to effect changes within their own working environments. Divided into three parts, the book discusses:

  • The politics of midwifery and sustainability
  • Midwifery as a sustainable healthcare practice
  • Supporting an ecological approach to parenting.

Sustainability, Midwifery and Birth is a vital read for all midwives and midwifery students interested in sustainable practice.

chapter |12 pages

Introduction

ByLorna Davies, Rea Daellenbach, Mary Kensington

part I|68 pages

The politics of midwifery and sustainability

chapter 1|16 pages

Globalisation, midwifery and maternity services

Struggles in meaning and practice in states under pressure
ByJo Murphy-Lawless

chapter 2|16 pages

Costing birth as commodity or sustainable public good

BySally K Tracy

chapter 3|17 pages

Social justice, motherhood and midwives

ByTricia Thompson

chapter 4|17 pages

Valuing the labour of midwives in Ontario, Canada and New Zealand

ByJuana Berinstein, Ellen Blais, Karen Guilliand

part II|115 pages

Midwifery as a sustainable healthcare practice

chapter 5|16 pages

The midwife as social connector

ByLorna Davies, Susan Crowther

chapter 6|17 pages

Sustained by joy

The potential of flow experience for midwives and mothers and the blocking of that flow
ByMavis Kirkham

chapter 7|15 pages

Sustained by compassion

BySheena Byrom, Diane Ménage

chapter 8|15 pages

Career or life cycle

The phenomenon of transitioning work-setting within midwifery in order to remain personally and professionally sustainable
ByMelanie Welfare

chapter 9|16 pages

Sustaining rural midwives and rural communities

ByMary Kensington, Jean Rankin

chapter 10|17 pages

Good housekeeping in sustainable midwifery practice

ByRuth Martis

chapter 11|17 pages

A values-based approach to sustainability literacy in a Bachelor of Midwifery programme

ByLorna Davies, Niki Harré, Kelly Kara

part III|86 pages

Supporting sustainable parenting

chapter 12|17 pages

The pregnant environment

ByJean Rankin

chapter 13|19 pages

The birthing environment

A sustainable approach
ByCarolyn Hastie

chapter 14|13 pages

Antenatal education

Sustaining healthy families
ByMary Nolan

chapter 15|18 pages

Climate action and infant feeding

ByCarol Bartle

chapter 16|17 pages

‘Good mothers’ in the age of finance

ByShanti Daellenbach, Rea Daellenbach

chapter |6 pages

Epilogue

Planet and Placenta: A Cycle Of Seasonal Correspondence Between Two Old Friends
ByJenny L. Meyer