March is an exciting month for me with events and exhibitions about M/others and birthing, starting with a panel at M/Other at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne.
“Last year, more than 300,000 children were born in Australia, yet systems in place for childbirth remain opaque and often discriminatory. For M/OTHER, the Wheeler Centre brings together a panel of perinatal health experts and creatives to explore the disparity between birthing expectations and reality, the birthing body, structural healthcare barriers faced by First Nations communities, and why mental health care for new parents so often falls short. Combining their personal experience with years of research and expertise in the fields of perinatal health, this panel features author of The Cost of Labour, Natalie Kon-Yu; nurse and Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at RMIT, Dr Ruth De Souza; and Karinda Taylor, CEO at First Peoples’ Health and Wellbeing. Together with feminist writer and organiser Karen Pickering, they will navigate the intersections between pregnancy, birthing and healthcare for a multi-faceted discussion of the contemporary birthing experience.”