Kathryn Gutteridge – författare

"Fills a critical gap in the literature on maternity care... a comprehensive and thoughtful exploration of how we can better understand, support, and care for survivors of sexual abuse" Sheena Byrom in her forewordTrauma-informed maternity care is essential for women who are survivors of childhood abuse. Pregnancy and birth can bring up long-suppressed memories and feelings that have implications for women’s health and wellbeing as they become mothers. Welcoming a new baby into the family can challenge relationships and distort emotions following birth, affecting partners and bonding with their baby.Kathryn Gutteridge has spent her career as a midwife advocating for the needs of survivor women in maternity care, and this book is the result of that work. She explains how and why the needs of survivors must be taken into account, and shows that trauma-informed care can transform the experiences of women who might otherwise be further traumatised by the maternity care system.Drawing on the evidence base, personal experience, and the words of survivors themselves, this carefully conceived and written book will help all those who work in maternity to better understand the needs of survivors of childhood abuse in their care. For those clinicians who are themselves survivors, this book acknowledges the challenges they face and makes suggestions about how they might find solace in supporting women and their babies.

This book informs and enlighten health professionals on how the recognition of fearing women can change their episode of care during childbearing.  It gives practical advice on the way women present to services and the challenges that this invokes.  This work is the first of its kind aimed at clinicians to deconstruct ideology around childbearing myths and its challenges.  The authors review the evidence that exists and how modern maternity systems are responding to fear and shaping healthcare.Whilst some worry and anxiety is expected and indeed considered normal during childbearing, it has been suggested that this has now proliferated to a degree of abnormal for many women.  Why is that and how is this panic spread?  Media portrayal of birth is suggested as unrealistic material and to show only that which is dramatic and horrific.  This has been considered as one factor influencing modern women. Medicalisation, technology and demandupon services is another consequence of providing almost all maternity care in hospitals.  Given that the majority of childbearing women are fit and healthy is this another causative factor?By removing women from their homes and families at such a vulnerable time has a serious consequence for how she will experience her greatest leap of faith into motherhood. All of these issues are explored and examined in the book with ideas and practical suggestions of what may be done to change this increasingly common problem.  This book is intended at midwives and clinicians working in maternity settings.