Margie Polden Memorial Lecture: Empowerment – a gift bestowed or withheld

Author(s): G. Fletcher - Pages: 5–14

Abstract

This paper explores the areas in which health professionals can work in collaboration with women and their partners so as to enable them to have a birth experience that is both empowering and fulfilling. It also examines areas where an impact on maternity service provision might be made. The delivery of high-quality healthcare services should address patient safety, the effectiveness of care and the patient experience. In order to become an active participant in rather than a passive recipient of care, mothers need to enter into an effective collaboration with health professionals. The author provides physiotherapists with an opportunity to: review their own perceptions and beliefs about labour and birth; explore the kind of working relationships that they have with their clients; and reflect on the language they use when talking about labour and birth. Since the publication of Changing Childbirth, there has been much rhetoric about "choice" and "shared decision-making" in all recent UK policy documents, and yet the reality for many women today is that the medical model still wields enormous influence over maternity service provision. However, obstetric physiotherapists who are involved in delivering antenatal classes can play a major role in empowering mothers-to-be and their partners to recognize that they can have an impact on the kind of labour that they might experience.

Keywords: childbirth, empowerment, labour, maternity services, midwifery.