The politicisation of maternity

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2024 on Saturday 19 October at Church House, Westminster.

ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION

Having a baby is a joy, but it’s also no easy task. Aside from the pains every woman has had to go through – from months of indigestion to hours of labour – women bringing a baby into the modern world are now faced with a set of extra challenges. From moral panics about feeding practices to endless books and podcasts on parenting styles, being pregnant and giving birth has become a political act.

Even the medical services women rely on to have children safely have been politicised. As Sirin Kale revealed in the Guardian, midwifery and maternity services have long been influenced by external groups like the Natural Childbirth Trust (NCT), which advocates for unmedicated, ‘natural’ births, using hypnobirthing and aromatherapy. As a result, many women have expressed guilt or shame about asking for pain relief during labour. What used to be common sense – loving your newborn – has now become a studied science, with lessons on skin-to-skin bonding and oxytocin production encouraged by NHS staff across the country.

Likewise, the practical question of how to feed a baby is now a hotly contested topic of debate – one which can often get nasty on social media. Breastfeeding advocacy has won over governments and international NGOs, who have, through legislation and health policy, imposed a ‘breast is best’ narrative. Likewise, the ramping up of efforts to monitor women’s alcohol consumption both before and during pregnancy aims to protect women from the ‘unhealthy choice’ of a glass of wine in pregnancy.

For some, motherhood is political. In the 1960s, woman’s campaigners railed against the over-medicalisation of pregnancy and birth, and contested the benefit of the singularly powerful influence of doctors. Intrusive medical practices and a disregard for women’s bodily autonomy inspired a reclaiming of maternity as an expression of womanhood. But for others, this politicisation of pregnancy created a sense of pressure to do things the ‘right way’, leaving some women feeling like they have failed a test if they do not.

The dark backdrop to all of this is that maternity services are in crisis – with the Care Quality Commission finding in 2023 that two thirds of the maternity units it examined were ‘inadequate’ or required improvement, declaring ‘many are still not receiving the safe, high-quality care that they deserve’. From preventable maternal and infant deaths to extreme birth trauma becoming commonplace, has the move towards a natural, politicised birth come at the cost of safety?

Has all this talk about the right way to be pregnant and give birth scared some women off completely, with birth rates consistently dropping? Or are these new practices in maternity a necessary correction to a lack of woman-centred care that was characteristic of previous generations? Should the NHS be involved in political campaigns from La Leche League to the NCT, or are these external organisations merely providing guidance to women who want it? Can, and should, we aim to take the politics out of maternity?

SPEAKERS
Emily Barley
Maternity safety campaigner

Dr Ruth Ann Harpur
clinical psychologist; co-founder, Infant Feeding Alliance

Professor Ellie Lee
professor of family and parenting research, University of Kent, Canterbury; director, Centre for Parenting Culture Studies

Clare Murphy
co-director, Feed; former chief executive, British Pregnancy Advisory Service; former health reporter, BBC

CHAIR
Ella Whelan
co-convenor, Battle of Ideas festival; journalist; author, What Women Want