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This seminar series aims to bring together health sciences, health humanities and midwifery and media and communications, cultural studies and cultural sociology people (and anyone else who is interested!) to discuss birth on television.

All welcome. To register email Sara De Benedictis: sara.debenedictis@nottingham.ac.uk

Maternal Readings of Pregnancy and Childbirth on the Small Screen

Dr. Rebecca Feasey, University of Bath

21st September 2016, 12:00– 13:00, Room A09, Highfield House, University Park

‘We keep calm and eat cake’: One Born Every Minute and ‘securing consent’ for austerity

Dr. Sara De Benedictis, University of Nottingham

19th October 2016, 12:00-13:00, [Room TBC]

Decision-making as interactional practice in conversations between women and HCPs during labour: Insights from One Born Every Minute

Dr. Clare Jackson, University of York

23rd November 2016, 12:00-13:00, [Room TBC]

Changing the Narrative around Birth: Midwives Views of Working with the Media

Prof. Vanora Hundley, University of Bournemouth

14th December 2016, 12:00-13:00, [Room TBC]

Female Expertise in the Birthing Show: A Transnational Study

Dr. Sofia Bull, University of Southampton

18th January 2017, 12:00-13:00, [Room TBC]

This seminar series is supported by the Wellcome Trust.

Co-hosted by the Maternal Health and Wellbeing Research Group and Health Humanities.

Twitter: @TelevisingBirth

We would like to introduce immigrantmothers.net – a website that  presents parts of the ongoing research project Immigrant Mothers As Agents of Change conducted by Agata Lisiak from Humboldt University Berlin within the ERC-funded project TRANSFORmIG.

“The website is to serve several functions: it is a platform for displaying how the immigrant mothers I have talked to depict how it is for them to be (immigrant) mothers in urban settings; it is my way of sharing the methods I have been applying with colleagues and possibly larger audiences (including, of course, immigrant mothers); it is an attempt at visualizing certain practices (transactions involving objects related to child rearing) and being open about their shortcomings; it is a glimpse into a research process, keeping it open and easily accessible.”

University of Cambridge just announced  a 3 Year Lectureship in the Sociology of Reproduction. The post welcomes applications from sociologists working in any related field, including the sociology of gender, medical sociology, media and cultural studies, or science and technology studies.

The application deadline for this post is Monday 30 November 2015.

For details of the post please follow the link.

We’re so delighted that the new issue is being so widely read.

See Studies in the Maternal 7(1).

We are delighted to announce that Studies in the
 Maternal 7(1) is now out. You can access it at http://www.mamsie.bbk.ac.uk/

Many thanks to everyone involved in putting this issue together.

Please continue to send us work and post responses on Facebook, Twitter and the blog

The 81^st number of the European Magazine for Sexual and Reproductive Health ENTRE NOUS  “Birth in Europe in the 21^st Century” is now published in English and is available in hard copies and on:

http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/Life-stages/sexual-and-reproductive-health/publications/entre-nous/entre-nous/birth-in-europe-in-the-21st-century.-entre-nous-no.-81,-2015

Moreover, in order to reach a larger public and as a new feature of our magazine, each article is now available as .pdf files.

The Russian version will be available during the summer 2015.

The Midwifery Department and Division of Women’s Health at King’s College, London would like to invite you to a lecture by Dr Holly Powell Kennedy; “Collaboration: Crossing Boundaries to Improve Maternal and Newborn Health”.

This lecture will present several case studies to describe creative strategies to enhance collaboration across and within disciplines to address gaps and improve outcomes in maternal and newborn health. These will include several initiatives in the United States and will also draw upon 2014 Lancet Series on Midwifery.

Dr Kennedy is Executive Deputy Dean at Yale School of Nursing & was the first person to be appointed as the Varney Professor of Midwifery at Yale in 2009. She came to the position with broad experiences as a clinician, researcher, educator, policymaker and leader in a variety of settings. Collectively these experiences have shaped her current vision of academic and clinical scholarship in US maternal-child health care. Professor Kennedy’s program of research is rooted in her clinical and educational experiences during which she was challenged by a prevailing lack of trust in and fear of childbirth. Her research is committed to understand the links between “how” care is provided during pregnancy and birth with clinical and social outcomes.

The event is taking place on Friday 15^th May 2015, 16.30 – 18.00 at the Stamford Street Lecture Theatre (Waterloo).

It is free of charge, but please register your attendance via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/holly-kennedy-lecture-tickets-16909786627

More information regarding the content of the lecture & about Dr Kennedy can be found via the link.

We have added a new artist to the MaMSIE online Art Collection. Check out the work of Elinor Carucci in our art collection section.

“Taking Pregnancy Seriously in Ethics and Epistemology Workshop II”,
Avenue Campus, University of Southampton, 13th April 2015.

SPEAKERS
Rebecca Kukla (Georgetown)
Sally Fischer (Warren-Wilson)
Lindsey Porter (Sheffield)
Fiona Woollard (Southampton)

DESCRIPTION
In applied ethics, much has been written in relation to pregnancy – based either on a conception of pregnancy as the ‘hosting of a stranger’, or focusing on the rights of the foetus whilst disregarding that foetus’s existence as intertwined with that of its mother. Neither of these two approaches takes the unique physical, relation and transformative state of pregnancy seriously. Pregnancy also raises epistemological issues. Does the radically transformative character of pregnancy mean that those who have never been pregnant are excluded from certain kinds of knowledge about pregnancy and its consequences? And are pregnant women taken seriously now as knowers and testifiers?  These epistemological issues have important implications for the appropriate way to approach the ethical debate.

This workshop is one of a series of four in the project Taking Pregnancy Seriously in Metaphysics, funded by the Southampton Ethics Centre and the University of Southampton ‘Adventures in Research’ Scheme. It will be followed by two workshops on Taking Pregnancy Seriously in Metaphysics and was preceded by a workshop on Taking Pregnancy Seriously in Ethics and Epistemology on the 18th of June 2014. 

REGISTRATION
More information, program, abstracts and registration here

Registration is free of charge, and will include tea/coffee/refreshments. Delegates must provide/ pay for their own meals; there is an option to sign up for a buffet lunch (cost: GBP 8.50) when registering via the online store.
Please register by April 1st. If you would like to attend but childcare duties render your attendance difficult, please contact the organisers (as far in advance as possible).

PROJECT AFTERBIRTH

International Open Call for Artist Parents

 On Monday 6th April 2015, Project AfterBirth launches an international open call inviting professional contemporary artists of any gender working in any visual, performing, text, film or digital art discipline to submit work they created in response to their own or their partner’s pregnancy, birth and/or early parenthood experiences. Submission deadline is Friday 15th May.

By the end of June 2015, a dedicated panel of international arts professionals will announce a selection from submissions which will feature in an exhibition about the impact of early parenthood on the artist. This exhibition will launch at White Moose gallery in the South West of the UK on 2nd October 2015 with the aim to tour to a number of UK, European and USA art spaces in 2016-18.

The Project AfterBirth selection panel comprises founding artists/curators Kris Jager & Mila Oshin(Joy Experiment, Exeter, UK), Stella Levy and Julie Gavin (White Moose, Devon, UK), Joy Rose(Museum of Motherhood, New York, USA), Helen Knowles (The Birth Rites Collection, Manchester, UK) and Francesca Pinto (The Photographer’s Gallery, London, UK).

The panel will be looking for high quality and engaging work, reflecting a variety of personal perspectives on 21st century pregnancy, birth and early parenthood experiences by a mix of emerging and established professional contemporary artists working in traditional and new media.

Submitted work may also contribute to an interdisciplinary research initiative led by Project AfterBirthand a team of academics from the fields of obstetrics, mental health, midwifery, media studies, social justice, and women and gender studies, which aims to shed light on current Western pregnancy & birth practices, to investigate their impact on early parenthood experiences, and to inform their future. A further objective is to present submitted work on a new online archive dedicated to contemporary art, social activism and research on the subject of new parenthood.

For more information or to join the mailing list, visit: http://www.projectafterbirth.com.

Please also LIKE Project AfterBirth on Facebook and/or follow developments on Twitter.

For all PRESS ENQUIRIES please email projectafterbirth@lionartprojects.co.uk.

Project AfterBirth is supported by: