Birthing work Matrescence Series 2 Maternal Health Series ANU March 2023

The ANU Gender Institute and Maternal Health Matters Inc. invite you to view the second in our online seminar series on Maternal Health that will explore the impact of maternity on women’s wellbeing and the transition to parenting. The presenters are Professor Katharine McKinnon, Dr Julie Smith, Dr Sophie Brock, and Dr Joan Garvan. This was recorded 16th March, 2023.

There are significant concerns about a continuing medicalization of birth that is leading to poor outcomes for women and their families, conditions that are exacerbated by financial pressures and adjustment issues in the early years afterwards. There is an assemblage of factors that come into play in the spaces and experiences of the birth. Katharine McKinnon questions who does the work of childbirth? She expands the boundaries for who, and what, is responsible for this collective labour and highlights the interdependencies that characterize it. Julie Smith speaks to the 2023 Lancet Series on Breastfeeding which highlights how under-funded maternity services, pervasive corporate influence and conflicts of interest, and a health system culture that privileges commercial technologies and biomedical interventions has promoted milk formula sales and undermined breastfeeding. Julie calls for a reconfiguration towards more ‘woman-centred’ and ‘culturally appropriate’ maternity care. Furthermore, the notion of Matrescence, developed by anthropologist Dana Raphael, is increasingly being used to describe the process of becoming a mother. This covers the physical, psychological, and emotional changes women go through during the transition to parenthood and is highly relevant to the experience of women today, yet remains a neglected aspect of maternity care.