Irene went to China several years ago to undertake a small contract helping a local hospital service to train midwives. She is the author of several books on midwifery and had a significant profile in the US as a public educator encouraging the use of midwifery in the context of a prevailing narrative for clinical obstetric based childbirth. She saw her role as revising the power of women to determine their own health and birth experience. Years later she is still there with a wider range of medical services across China contracting her to develop midwifery and place it in the context of traditional Chinese medicine.
With the relaxing (but not the phasing out) of the one child policy the scope for mid-wifery was always likely to increase. Chinese services saw this as possibility to strengthen traditions and increase service provision. This is an extra-ordinary story of taking care and traditional knowledge back to those who can be empowered by it. It involves the experience we had after the work of Joan Donnelly and Helen Clark to restore mid-wifery to NZ.
Auckland Polish Society
Morningside
Auckland, AUK 1025
New Zealand