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Journal Vol. 36, No. 4 — The deafness loop: a cycle of inequality

ISSN 2516-5852 (Online)

Editorial: Hello and welcome. How are you?
Alex Smith introduces the theme for the December 2024 issue of the journal: the experience of care for profoundly deaf parents and for parents who discover that their baby is deaf.

History and politics of deafness
Senior midwifery lecturer Meghan Luton discusses the competing ideas of deafness as a disability or deafness as a culture, as context for describing the issues faced by Deaf women accessing maternity services.

Support for deaf and deafblind women in the maternity setting
Midwife and specialist interpreter for the deaf and deafblind, Lesely Weatherson, outlines her view on the provision of communication support for deaf and deafblind women in the maternity setting.

Hearing impaired and giving birth during the pandemic
Helen Jones, who is hard of hearing, shares her personal experience of being pregnant and giving birth during the Covid lockdowns.

Why can’t we just give deaf people a leaflet?
Alex Smith, who has a profoundly deaf grandson, explains why an information page or leaflet, rather than addressing inequality for deaf people, may actually compound it

A conversation with Karrie whose little boy is deaf
Karrie Williams shares her personal experience of discovering that her baby son is deaf.

A child is born into the world and their world is in silence
One mother’s moving account of navigating the challenges she faced in providing her deaf baby with language from the very start.

Welcome to the Deaf Community – a lesson in miscommunication to new (hearing) parents
When this new mother found her day-old baby was deaf, the initial care was as shocking as the diagnosis.

Pregnancy and hearing: Did you know?
Alex Smith shares some snippets of pregnancy-related deaf awareness.

The BSL Birth Certificate
Salli Ward tells us about the first baby to have their BSL sign name legally recorded on their birth certificate.

Physiology-Informed Maternity Services (PIMS)
Catharine Hart reports on the Microbirth Summit she attended in July, sharing what she learned about the infant microbiome and why it matters in maternity

Birth Activists Briefing: Maternal Mental Health Service Progress Report
The AIMS Campaigns Team share what they learned from the Maternal Mental Health Services progress report published in October 2024 by the Maternal Mental Health Alliance (MMHA)

How does midwife continuity of care compare with other models of care?
On behalf of the Campaigns Team, Catharine Hart considers this recently updated Cochrane review.

A Pamphlet of Possibilities
Retired midwife Bine Browne introduces us to the Association of Radical Midwives’ pamphlet, ‘Proposals for Change : A New Era in Maternity Care’.

AIMS attends the NHS ConfedExpo 2024
AIMS volunteer Jo Dagustun tells us about her day at the NHS ConfedExpo

AIMS urges action as newly released analysis demonstrates better care when ‘full pathway continuity of carer’ is in place
The AIMS Campaigns Team explains why AIMS is calling for a full pathway continuity of carer model of care to be a key plank of the new Government’s renewed maternity transformation policy

What has the AIMS Campaigns Team been up to this quarter?
The AIMS Campaigns team updates us about their recent activities.

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