Royal College of Midwives adds The Positive Birth Company’s Closing the Gap workshop to new anti-racism kit for midwives
The Positive Birth Company’s Closing the Gap workshop is added to the RCM’s Decolonising Midwifery Education Toolkit
Certified B Corp business The Positive Birth Company has been added to a new anti-racism toolkit for midwives created by The Royal College of Midwives. The Decolonising Midwifery Education toolkit has been created by the RCM in response to shocking figures which show Black, Mixed Heritage and Asian women are more likely to die giving birth than white women.
The Positive Birth Company worked with leading inclusion and healthcare professionals in the UK to create their online Closing the Gap workshop to address this urgent human rights issue, with the workshop now added to the RCM’s toolkit to be used by midwives nationwide.
The RCM’s Head of Education, Heather Bower, said:
“The inequalities in maternity care for Black and Asian women have been highlighted in several recent reports. The Positive Birth Company has responded to this call to action by producing this informative and empowering resource for health professionals. This course will help midwives and other maternity healthcare professionals to understand some of the issues which create inequalities in maternity care and what they can do to improve the care for Black and Brown women.”
The MBRRACE report found that Black women are 3.7 times more likely to die in childbirth than white mothers, and that South Asian women face a maternal mortality rate that is 1.8 times higher than white women. In 2022, campaigning group Five X More (who are featured in The Positive Birth Company’s Closing the Gap online workshop) also created a report, as did the charity Birthrights, with both calling for better education of health professionals in all aspects of maternity care and diversity.
NHS inclusion lead and Closing the Gap contributor Sharifa Milford Al-Hashemy, said:
“If you are a patient from a Black or ethnic minority background, you’re much more likely to experience things like infection. You’re much more likely to experience things like drugs not being prescribed well. But also, there is something around pain and miscommunication of pain or mismanagement of pain and this isn’t anything inherently to do with the patient from a different background or a different minority ethnic background. It’s because our systems are built in such a way.”
As part of their mission to raise awareness about this issue and encourage more midwives and health professionals to sign up, The Positive Birth Company has launched their #ClosingtheGap campaign, calling on everyone to play a part in creating change. This campaign calls on members of the public to take action by:
- Taking a Closing the Gap leaflet to their next midwife appointment (available to download from The Positive Birth Company website)
- Using the template on The Positive Birth Company website to email their GP
- Using the template on The Positive Birth Company website to email their maternity unit
Find out more at: https://thepositivebirthcompany.co.uk/closing-the-gap
“Inspire others by being a champion of positive change. This will help to improve outcomes for all pregnant and birthing people. ”
Clotilde Abe & Tinuke Awe, founders Five x More campaign
ABOUT CLOSING THE GAP & THE RCM’S DECOLONISING MIDWIFERY EDUCATION TOOLKIT:
Closing the Gap is a new online workshop for doctors, midwives and other healthcare professionals in the maternity sector, designed as an introduction to building an inclusive and culturally sensitive practice of care for patients.
Created in partnership with inclusion and healthcare experts, and with support from South West AHSN (Academic Health & Science Networks), the workshop is completely free and requires a time commitment of less than two hours. It aims to support midwives and doctors to better care for all patients during a period when time and financial resources are extremely low in maternity services and across the NHS.
Closing the Gap is the only non-NHS resource included in the Royal College of Midwives Decolonising Midwifery Education toolkit. As it stands, 94% of the midwifery curriculum is centred around a euro-centric model. The RCM has launched their ground-breaking new toolkit in response to this, to help educators improve diversity in midwifery education. The toolkit is the first of its kind and addresses multiple issues, including student recruitment from diverse backgrounds and ensuring the curriculum educates students to care for women and babies from non-white backgrounds.
More information about Closing the Gap (from The Positive Birth Company): https://thepositivebirthcompany.co.uk/closing-the-gap
Watch the trailer: https://youtu.be/pmx76tDTWLE
More information about Decolonising Midwifery Education toolkit (from RCM):
