Sustainability, Midwifery and Birth Environmental awareness and sustainability are vitally important concepts in the twenty-first century and, as a low environmental impact health care profession, midwifery has the potential to stand as a model of excellence. This innovative volume promotes a sustainable approach to midwifery prac - tice, philosophy, business administration and resource management. Drawing on an interdisciplinary body of knowledge, this international collection of experts explore 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 health care practice • Supporting an ecological approach to parenting. Sustainability, Midwifery and Birth identifies existing models of sustainable midwifery practice, such as the continuity of care model, and highlights the potential for midwifery as a role model for ecologically sound health care pro - vision. This unique book is a vital read for all midwives and midwifery students interested in sustainable practice. Contributors include: Sally Baddock, Carol Bartle, Ruth Deery, Nadine Pilley Edwards, Ina May Gaskin, Megan Gibbons, Carolyn Hastie, Barbara Katz-Rothman, Mavis Kirkham, Nicky Leap, Ruth Martis, Zoë Meleo-Erwin, Jenny L. Meyer, Jo Murphy-Lawless, Mary Nolan, Sally Pairman and Sally Tracy. Lorna Davies is a Midwife Lecturer at Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, New Zealand. She was formerly a Lecturer in Midwifery at Anglia Ruskin University and is Co-Director of www.withwoman.co.uk. She still carries a small midwifery caseload as a self-employed midwife. Rea Daellenbach is a Midwife Lecturer at Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, New Zealand. She has a ministerial appointment on the Midwifery Council of New Zealand. Mary Kensington is Co-Head of Midwifery at Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, New Zealand. Sustainability, Midwifery and Birth Edited by Lorna Davies, Rea Daellenbach and Mary Kensington First published 2011 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2011 Lorna Davies, Rea Daellenbach and Mary Kensington. Individual chapters; the contributors. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sustainability, midwifery, and birth/edited by Lorna Davies, Rea Daellenbach, and Mary Kensington. p.; cm. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Midwifery. 2. Sustainability. I. Davies, Lorna. II. Daellenbach, Rea. III. Kensington, Mary. [DNLM: 1. Midwifery. 2. Conservation of Natural Resources. 3. Infant Care. 4. Parturition. 5. Politics. 6. Social Environment. WQ 160 S964 2011] RG950.S87 2011 618.2—dc22 2010015452 ISBN 0-203-84124-7 Master e-book ISBN ISBN13: 978–0–415–56333–8 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–56334–5 (pbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–84124–2 (ebk) Contents Notes on contributors viii Prologue xiv Acknowledgements xvii Introduction 1 SECTION ONE The politics of midwifery and sustainability 9 1 Globalization, midwifery and maternity services: struggles in meaning and practice in states under pressure 11 JO MURPHY-LAWLESS 2 Sustaining midwifery in an ever changing world 23 INA MAY GASKIN 3 Costing birth as commodity or sustainable public good 32 SALLY TRACY 4 ‘Choice’ and justice: motherhood in a global context 45 ZOË MELEO-ERWIN AND BARBARA KATZ-ROTHMAN SECTION TWO Midwifery as a sustainable health care practice 59 5 ‘Relationships – the glue that holds it all together’: midwifery continuity of care and sustainability 61 NICKY LEAP, HANNAH DAHLEN, PAT BRODIE, SALLY TRACY AND JULIET THORPE vi Contents 6 Promoting a sustainable midwifery workforce: working towards ‘ecologies of practice’ 75 RUTH DEERY 7 Sustained by joy: the potential of flow experience for midwives and mothers 87 MAVIS KIRKHAM 8 The birthing environment: a sustainable approach 101 CAROLYN HASTIE 9 Sustainable midwifery education: a case study from New Zealand 115 SALLY PAIRMAN 10 Mentoring new graduates: towards supporting a sustainable profession 128 MARY KENSINGTON 11 Good housekeeping in midwifery practice: reduce, reuse and recycle 141 RUTH MARTIS SECTION THREE Supporting an ecological approach to parenting 155 12 Parents as consumers 157 LORNA DAVIES 13 Breastfeeding and sustainability: loss, cost, ‘choice’, damage, disaster, adaptation and evolutionary logic 168 CAROL BARTLE 14 The pregnant environment 182 MEGAN GIBBONS AND JEAN PATTERSON 15 An ecology of antenatal education 196 MARY NOLAN Contents vii 16 Co-sleeping: an ecological parenting practice 207 SALLY BADDOCK 17 How can birth activism contribute to sustaining change for better birthing for women, families and societies in the new millennium? 218 REA DAELLENBACH AND NADINE PILLEY EDWARDS Epilogue 233 Planet and placenta: a cycle of seasonal correspondence between two old friends JENNY L. MEYER Index 240 Notes on contributors Sally Baddock B.Sc. Dip Tchng, Ph.D. has been involved in the SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) research area for over 10 years. She has a B.Sc. majoring in physiology and completed her Ph.D. in 2005. She investigated the physiology and behaviour of infants while bedsharing compared to cot-sleeping. Findings from this study have been published in high-ranking international peer-reviewed journals and presented at many international and national conferences. Sally has also taught physiol ogy at undergraduate and postgraduate level to students of midwifery and other health professions for over 20 years. She is currently Associate Head of School of Midwifery at Otago Polytechnic. Carol Bartle RN, RM, IBCLC, PGDip. Child Advocacy, MHeal.Sc. heard E. F. Schumacher speak in England in the early 1970s, thanks to her inspiring cousin Cynthia Stein. Further exposure, to environmental issues, was also directly as a result of work by Stein who lobbied for the development of recycling systems in West Yorkshire. Later in the mid- 1970s, after Carol moved to Christchurch, New Zealand, she worked as a volunteer at the Environment Centre, learning from another inspirational person, the late Rod Donald, who became the co-leader of the NZ Green Party. Carol has developed an enduring interest in optimal and safe infant feeding and women’s health. Over the years she has worked as a midwife and breastfeeding advocate and is concerned about the unethical marketing of substitutes for breastmilk and the growing market push for dairy development to the detriment of the environment and health. Pat Brodie is the Immediate Past President of the Australian College of Midwives and Adjunct Professor of Midwifery at the University of Technology, Sydney. For more than two decades, she has contributed to policy change and practice development that has enhanced continuity of care and the recognition of midwives as primary carers. Pat has had a leadership role in major reforms to midwifery education, regulation and practice throughout Australia. Rea Daellenbach (editor), BA (Hons), Ph.D. (Sociology), was introduced to the ecology movement by her father as a small child. She became active Notes on contributors ix in the Home Birth Association in the mid-1980s and, as a consumer representative, was involved in the establishment of the New Zealand College of Midwives. At the same time she completed a Ph.D. in sociology about the home birth movement in New Zealand. In 2004 she was appointed as a ‘lay person’ to the inaugural Midwifery Council of New Zealand. Currently, she is a Lecturer for the School of Midwifery at the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, New Zealand. Hannah Dahlen is an Associate Professor of Midwifery at the University of Western Sydney and is the Vice President of the Australian College of Midwives. She is well known for her commitment to the reforming of maternity care in Australia, her skills in political negotiation and her creative expertise in media liaison. Hannah has published widely about research that is focussed on improving midwifery practice and woman-centred care. Lorna Davies (editor), RM, B.Sc. (Hons), PGCEA, MA, is a UK qualified midwife who has worked in midwifery education for the last 15 years. She has published extensively in midwifery journals and texts and has edited two midwifery titles in recent years. She has been interested in environ- mental issues for a considerable length of time and was an executive committee member of the Women’s Environmental Network (WEN) for several years. During this time she co-edited a book on green issues and contributed to several TV documentaries. Lorna is currently a principal lecturer in midwifery at Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology in