Midwives' views of traditional birth attendants within formal healthcare in Nigeria.

Background: Discourses around the journey to motherhood in many poorly-resourced countries, particularly in the sub-Saharan African region, with no link to death and danger are limited. The custodians of traditional practices - the traditional birth attendants - are often blamed for the high maternal deaths in this region. Conventional institutional and international thinking about traditional birth attendants is that they are dangerous and therefore should no longer be allowed to practice.

Unilateral collaboration: The practices and understandings of traditional birth attendants in southeastern Nigeria.

Background: Despite the promotion of hospital-based maternity care as the safest option, for less developed countries, many women particularly those in the rural areas continue to patronise indigenous midwives or traditional birth attendants. Little is known about traditional birth attendants' perspectives regarding their pregnancy and birth practices.

Aim: To explore traditional birth attendants' discourses of their pregnancy and birthing practices in southeast Nigeria.

Are staffing shortages changing the culture of midwifery?

The effects of budgetary changes on midwives' practice environment have raised concerns in many settings. A survey of midwives and student midwives in the UK and Republic of Ireland in 2014 produced 280 responses. Staffing shortages were regarded as underpinning many changes, one of which was that of previously optional 'extra' activities, such as unpaid overtime, becoming mandatory.

Reflections on human rights as a reality for women and midwives.

We often speak of a woman's right to choose the way she wishes to give birth. This article discusses how 'real' that right is. Some of the legal background to human rights as they relate to childbirth is set out, centred on the 2010 European Court of Human Rights ruling in the home birth case, Ternovszky v Hungary.

The politics of maternity.

Changes in the culture of health care require that, to be effective, midwifery practice should become more woman-centred. This may be facilitated by adopting a stronger community orientation. In this way the hegemony of maternity care may be addressed.

Irish midwives' experiences of providing maternity care to non-Irish women seeking asylum.

Background: Immigration and asylum seeking has been an important social and political phenomenon in Ireland since the mid 1990s. Inward migration to Ireland was seen in unprecedented numbers from 1995 onward, peaking in 2002 with 11,634 applications for refugee status. Asylum and immigration is an issue of national and international relevance as the numbers of displaced people worldwide continues to grow, reaching the highest level in 20 years at 45.

Childbirth in exile: asylum seeking women's experience of childbirth in Ireland.

Objectives: the purpose of this study was to gain insight into women's experiences of childbirth in Ireland while in the process of seeking asylum. This paper will focus on one of the primary findings of the study, how lack of connection, communication and cultural understanding impacted the health and well-being of the women who participated.

Design: researchers adopted a structural approach to narrative analysis using Burke's (1969) dramatistic pentad to analyse 22 women's narrative accounts of their childbirth experiences.

Creating change in improbable places: the Birth Project Group.

The Birth Project Group, a collaborative initiative based in Edinburgh and Dublin and comprising practising midwives, academics and birth advocates, held its second weekend workshop in April 2010. This brought together those involved in working to sustain and strengthen changes to the contemporary birth culture so as to promote normality. This article reports on the feedback from some of the attendees, which included parents, midwives and student midwives.

Childbirth policies and practices in Ireland and the journey towards midwifery-led care.

Objective: To describe the dominant policies and practices that have governed childbirth in Ireland, and to outline the progress made towards the introduction of midwifery-led care in one health region.

Literature Review: A review of maternity-care policies in Ireland was conducted using government and regional health-authority documents and two historical reviews of government policies. A search was also carried out in PubMed and cinahl databases, using the keywords 'maternity care', 'childbirth', 'policy', 'midwifery-led', 'Ireland/Irish', with relevant Boolean and string operands.