Edinburgh Napier University

  This unique book argues that love underpins safe, effective, high quality, midwifery care, and enables readers to explore sustainable and compassionate ways to engage with their profession.

At a time when midwives are struggling to stay connected with the passion that brought them into the profession, and fear, distress and trauma are prevalent within maternity care for both staff and those receiving care, this book maps a new way forward. It encourages reflection and discussion about how love impacts midwives’ experience of their practice and improves the quality of care they are able to provide for women, and their families. It develops a theoretical basis for understanding why love is relevant to midwifery, how midwives think of love, and the ways that it is communicated in practice. It offers practical ways in which love can be appropriately nurtured and applied in contemporary maternity settings, whilst upholding the professional standards required of all maternity care providers. Many chapters include the authentic words of midwives reflecting on the role of love in their own practice experiences.

Love and Midwifery is a valuable contribution to the literature around compassion, kindness, resilience, moral distress and trauma in maternity care, helping midwives to realise and feel proud of the love in their work. It is an essential read for all midwives from student to experienced practitioner, as well as the wider maternity care workforce.