Making normal birth a reality

Abstract

This article describes and discusses an conference paper given at the Dia Internacional do Enfermeiro de Saude Materna e Obstetrica, Viseu, Portugal. It highlights that many childbearing women in the 21st century now fear birth and the RCM's concerns that both women and maternity care professionals have become more dependent on technology during childbirth. This instigated the RCM's campaign for normal birth, which aims to inspire and support normal birth practice to maximise opportunities for women to experience normal birth and to reduce unncessary medical interventions. The importance of being with woman is stressed and a social model versus medical model of care is compared. Midwife's skills such as 'sussing out labour' and 'intuition' is explored as is 'working with pain' rather than a pain relief approach and 'holistic approaches to support normal birth practices are also discussed. In particular, active birth and the use of complementary therapies are reviewed. Midwives around the world can play an important role in making normal birth a reality once again.