INTERNATIONAL NORMAL LABOUR AND BIRTH RESEARCH CONFERENCE HISTORY

The genesis of the international normal labour and birth research conference was a research study published in the UK in 2001.

Government policy in the UK at the time was to provide high quality, safe and accessible services that are both women focused and family-centred and this included the need to empower midwives to promote normal birth. For the first time, this showed that, of 956 births in five hospitals in one English region that were recorded as being ‘normal’ or ‘spontaneous’, about two thirds (596) involved one or more of the following procedures: induction of labour, artificial rupture of membranes, epidural analgesia, episiotomy, or instrumental birth. These were all procedures that some women had found unacceptable or invasive, based on reports to a service user organisation, AIMs, who were involved in the design and interpretation of the survey.

In the light of the large difference between the clinical evidence, government and international policy, and information on what mattered to many women, and the findings from the Trent Regional study, a seminar was convened at the Harris Centre at the University of Central Lancashire, to discuss the issues arising from this study, and from other similar findings around the world. It was agreed that there was little good quality formal evidence about the physiological, emotional and psychological processes of spontaneous labour onset and progress, and birth. This was far more than just the mode of birth: it was about the complex nuanced physical, neurohormonal, social and cultural interplay of pregnancy, labour, birth, and the postnatal period, and the impact on mothers, fathers, partners, families, communities, and societies.

In 2002, a more formal conference was held at the University of Central Lancashire, to take the ideas from the seminar forward. Since then, the event has been held in alternate years in the UK and then overseas (see timeline below). Over this period of time, we have welcomed over 11,000 delegates with over Over 2000 oral and poster presentations, as well as Workshops, seminars, Pecha Kucha sessions, and Drama, poetry, dance, song, film…

Conversations in the field are changing as social media gains in importance and impact. However, many of the key issues that triggered the first seminar in 2001 remain. These include: what is the nature of physiological labour and birth? What are the short and longer term consequences? What knowledge and experience is required to understand it, support it, and recognize when additional specialist help should be sought? What models of care work to optimize physiological labour and birth for those who want it, as well as safety of service users and their babies? How can those funding/organising/managing/working in the maternity and neonatal services create environments and models of care that are and that feel physically, emotionally, psychologically and socially and culturally safe for all who use them (staff and service users), and where trust and relationships can be developed?

These, and other associated questions remain critically important. This conference is the place where they are asked, and answered.