In health care, we must always consider the range of people we encounter day to day. We are taught to be inclusive in not only our interventions, awareness of other cultures and our actions, but also our language. In midwifery, the environment affects many aspects of a birthing woman and person, the birth space should be a place of inclusivity and personalisation, so we should extend this to include the LGBTQIA+ community.
All kinds of people give birth, and as the NHS is acknowledging the wide range of people’s gender identity and sexual orientation today, in midwifery there should be an understanding that the birthing space is no longer just for cis-women.
‘…not every person who gives birth is a woman. Biologically, gestating a child requires that a person have a uterus, but it doesn’t require that person to be a woman, and it doesn’t require that person to enact a feminine gender expression. While many people with uterus’s are assigned female at the time of their own birth, pregnant people can be women, men, agender, nonbinary, trans, genderqueer, or lots of other identifiers!’
Whilst this is still regarded as a controversial topic, as health workers we must be inclusive in practice and keep up to date with the correct inclusive language when addressing and talking about our service users to ensure that no one is discriminated against.
Some health workers are worried about the loss of the word woman and mother and so some research suggests describing people giving birth as ‘women and pregnant people’.
Here are some user friendly links:
NHS service manual on inclusive language
Inclusive language in birth practice blog
Affirming language in birth blog
(Images)
Reflection:
It is so important to be inclusive in health care, whether that’s with the LGBTQIA+ community, cultural beliefs, disabilities or personal preferences, we as health care professionals have a duty to cater for and provide the same care for all our service users.
Have a look at the links in this blog, there are some good tips to help with being inclusive in practice.
It is worth mentioning that if you don’t know how to address someone, just ask. It’s better to ask than to presume.
What could you do to make sure you are inclusive in practice?
Could there be changes to the environment and paperwork to address inclusivity?
Further reading:
Midwives and pregnant men: labouring toward ethical care in the United States
Seahorse, The Dad who gave birth
(Written by Beth Hart August 2020)
