De Backer Kaat, Rayment-Jones Hannah, Montgomery Elsa, Easter Abigail
Department of Women & Children's Health, School of Life Course and Population Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine, King's College London, St. Thomas' Hospital, London, UK.
Division of Methodologies, Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care, King's College London, London, UK.
Birth. 2025 Sep;52(3):412-420. doi: 10.1111/birt.12842. Epub 2024 Jun 5.
Separation at birth due to safeguarding concerns is a deeply distressing and impactful event, with numbers rising across the world, and has devastating outcomes for birth mothers and their children. It is one of the most challenging aspects of contemporary midwifery practice in high-income countries, although rarely discussed and reflected on during pre- and post-registration midwifery training. Ethnic and racial disparities are prevalent both in child protection and maternity services and can be explained through an intersectional lens, accounting for biases based on race, gender, class, and societal beliefs around motherhood. With this paper, we aim to contribute to the growing body of critical midwifery studies and re-think the role of midwives in this context. Building on principles of reproductive justice theory, Intersectionality, and Standpoint Midwifery, we argue that midwives play a unique role when supporting women who go through child protection processes and should pursue a shift from passive bystander to active upstander to improve care for this group of mothers.
出于保障儿童安全的考虑，婴儿出生时就被分离，这是一件极其痛苦且影响深远的事情，全球此类情况的数量正在上升，对生母及其子女会产生毁灭性的后果。这是高收入国家当代助产实践中最具挑战性的方面之一，尽管在注册前和注册后的助产培训中很少被讨论和反思。种族和民族差异在儿童保护和产妇服务中普遍存在，可通过交叉性视角来解释，这一视角考虑了基于种族、性别、阶级以及围绕母性的社会观念所产生的偏见。在本文中，我们旨在为不断发展的批判性助产研究做出贡献，并重新思考助产士在此背景下的角色。基于生殖正义理论、交叉性理论和立场助产理论的原则，我们认为，助产士在支持经历儿童保护程序的女性时扮演着独特的角色，并且应该从被动旁观者转变为积极的挺身而出者，以改善对这一群体母亲的护理。
