In 2024, I was lucky to be awarded an Iolanthe Midwifery Award of £300 to fund public involvement in my PhD research exploring UK midwives’ perspectives on freebirth.
The study aims to explore how UK midwives feel about freebirth, what are their experiences of providing care to someone who chooses to freebirth, as well as the contextual factors that influence their views and the care they provide or would provide to women who freebirth.
My study uses a feminist lens to illuminate the complex power dynamics at the intersection of midwives’ role and women’s reproductive rights. I want to better understand the relationship between midwives’ and women’s autonomy, improving the way midwives’ support women’s choices.
As a feminist researcher, it was important to me that the views, knowledge and experience of UK midwives and women who freebirth were represented in my study.
In June 2024, I recruited 15 individuals with various experiences of freebirth to form a stakeholder panel, including a doula, women who freebirth, researchers with expertise on freebirth, and midwives in diverse clinical roles within the NHS maternity services, ambulance services and independent practice.
The Iolanthe Midwifery award enabled me to rightly recognise these people for their time, lived experience and contribution to my research. The panel reviewed and provided feedback on my survey instrument, which has made it more robust, improving the quality and relevance of the study findings.
The award has also had an unexpected and pleasant ripple effect: some of the stakeholders reinvested the £20 shopping voucher in funding midwifery team events, or in purchasing new midwifery books to expand their learning.
On a personal level, achieving a doctoral degree is part of the reason why I migrated to the UK so many years ago. As mum with small children and living in the North-East of Scotland, accessible networking opportunities are far and few apart.
The Iolanthe Midwifery award has helped me to give visibility to my study, opening new networking opportunities to enrich my research and/or to influence policy with my findings.
