Increasing numbers of women choose to birth without the assistance of a midwife or a doctor. The stories in this book, contributed by women who have freebirthed across the UK, help to explain why. These women describe how they came to be thinking about freebirth, how they prepared for it, and how their births unfolded. For some it was part of a journey following difficult past experiences with maternity services, for others it simply fitted with their beliefs and some grew in confidence wi...

The foundation between midwife and mother is the foundation upon which maternity care depends. Covering completely new topics areas, the new edition of this ground-breaking text brings together classic and current research to establish key tenets for maternity care within hospital and home.This ground-breaking essential text reaffirms the fragility and the power of the relationship between midwife and mother and remains the definitive guide to the complex area of midwife-mother rel...

Informed choice in maternity care is government policy and is therefore an important issue in the education of midwives and obstetricians. This book brings together key research in the area and provides a forum for the concerns of all involved. Contributors are drawn from a wide range of perspectives, including service users, lay support groups, midwives, social scientists, obstetricians, nursing and law. Informed Choice in Maternity Care is timely, topical and covers a number of current d...

The experience of stillbirth and other losses in pregnancy at what is usually a time of great joy is tragic for everyone involved, including midwifery professionals. Although research increasingly shows how profound the effects of loss can be, few studies have explored the effects of pregnancy loss - which often leads to other personal and professional traumas such as loss of autonomy or a workplace - on midwives. This in-depth investigation uses a phenomenological approach to capture midw...

We have written this book because the story it tells warrants a wide audience. We see the purpose of this book as informing discussion and decision-making around reconfigurations of maternity care, so that planning, communication, management and recruitment can be improved and shared vision articulated and understood.A" Throughout the world, women-centred care is gaining prominence in providing maternity care. Many birth centres open each year to meet this need - but at the same time, many...

A fascinating account of a scientific project that tracked 5 generations of children—the longest-ever-running study of human development.The lives of 70,000 people reveal the importance of our beginnings on the greater trajectory of our lives.In March 1946, scientists began to track thousands of children born in one cold week as part of a birth cohort study. No one imagined that this would become the longest-running study of human developme...

Since the middle of the twentieth century, the development of plastics has been one of the main factors influencing the history of medicine. For example, an anaesthesiologist was formerly an expert in delivering drugs by inhalation. Today, this expert delivers drugs through plastic catheters, in particular via intravenous and epidural routes. Where obstetrics is concerned, a typical modern woman in labour is visualised as having one of her arms connected to a plastic bag through a plastic tub...

Leadership, expertise, and collaborative working are fundamental aspects of efficient and effective healthcare. This book offers a comprehensive overview of the general theories, principles and points of good practice in each of these three areas. This general literature is then contextualised by theoretical and practical implications for maternity care, and illustrated with in-depth case studies of successful innovation and change in practice.Essential reading for all midwives, mi...

The NMC have produced standards of proficiency for pre registration midwifery education and those standards have been written in an “academic” language, for higher education institutions. Each student prior to being admitted to the profession must have achieved the proficiencies stated in the NMC publication.The purpose of this book is to provide students with material related to the standards of midwifery education. The students will be able to use the contents of this text and re...

Sociology is a key topic for all trainee health professionals, but many struggle to see what sociology has to offer. Based on years of experience teaching sociology to healthcare students, Lani Russell has written a truly introductory text which explains the main sociological concepts without jargon or becoming too advanced. Using carefully chosen examples, she shows how health issues are influenced by social phenomena such as class, race or sexuality and the relevance this has for practit...

Clinical Reflexology takes the practitioner on a journey of examination, critical review and debate prior to making recommendations for best practice in reflexology. The phenomenal rise in interest by health professionals in Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), and in particular touch therapies, has led to a need for texts that relate and integrate theory and practice to health care settings. Clinical Reflexology does this, expanding and exploring concepts introduced in the first ...

With the world's population getting increasingly older, there has never been a more pressing need for the study of old age and ageing. An Introduction to Gerontology provides a wide-ranging introduction to this important topic. By assuming no prior expert knowledge and avoiding jargon, this book will guide students through all the main subjects in gerontology, covering both traditional areas, such as biological and social ageing, and more contemporary areas, such as technology, the arts an...