For many years there has been growing concern about the culture of fear that is penetrating maternity services throughout the world, and that the fear felt by maternity care workers is directly and indirectly being transferred to the women and families they serve.
The consequences of fear include increased risk of defensive practice, where the childbearing woman and her family become potential enemies to those providing her care. In addition, the prevailing risk management and 'tick box culture' in maternity services encourages maternity workers to give priority to the records instead of the woman. These factors contribute to the dissatisfaction felt by those using and providing maternity services. There is however increasing evidence that kindness, compassion and mutual respect improve efficiency, effectiveness, experience and staff morale within healthcare settings.
The Roar Behind the Silence provides information, inspiration and practical suggestions to support maternity care workers, policy makers, and maternity care funders across the world in their quest to deliver sensitive, compassionate and high quality maternity services. The book highlights examples of good practice, and offers practical tools for making change happen, using evidence and stories where appropriate.
Edited by Sheena Byrom & Soo Downe, with contributions by Olivia Armshaw, Kirsten Baker, Alison Barrett, Maria Helena Bastos, Dean Beaumont, Diana Bowser, Theresa Bourne, Gemma Boyd, Anna Byrom, Sheena Byrom, Penny Campling, Ngai Fen Cheung, Teresa Chinn, Michael Clift, Tracey Cooper, Hannah Dahlen, Raymond De Vries, Soo Downe, Ramón Escuriet, Julie Frohlich, Catherine Grosvenor, Kathryn Gutteridge, Jenny Hall, Kicki Hansard, Marijke Hendrix, Shelagh Heneghan, Milli Hill, Billie Hunter, Laura Iannuzzi, Mavis Kirkham, Sue Lees, Mande Limbu, Amali Lokugamage, Carmel McCalmont, Sandra Morano, Deirdre Munro, Roberto Ortíz, Mercedes Perez-Botella, Gill Phillips, Elizabeth Prochaska, Rineke Schram, Mel Scott, Adele Stanley, Senga Steele, Anna Ternovszky, Kerstin Uvnäs Moberg, Tamar van Haaren, Lucie Warren and Robin Youngson. Foreword by Frances Day-Stirk & Sabaratnam Arulkumaran and Toyin Saraki.
Sheena Byrom has been a midwife since the 1970s, and latterly as a consultant midwife and head of midwifery. She writes and lectures regularly on childbirth and midwifery related topics, and is the joint owner of all4maternity.com an online learning platform for maternity workers, incorporating The Practising Midwife journal. Sheena received an OBE for services to midwifery in 2011, and has been awarded two honorary doctorates in 2016 and 2018.
Her first book, Catching Babies, was published in 2011 to rave reviews.
You can follow Sheena on Twitter and visit her website here.
Soo is a Professor of Midwifery Studies at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK (https://www.uclan.ac.uk/staff_profiles/professor_soo_downe.php). Her specific focus is the normal physiology of childbirth, including the processes which can maximise normal birth. She is the Chair of the International Birth Research and Action Association (IBRAA) which builds on the EU funded BIRTH network, involving over 120 scientists and activists in 33 countries. She has worked on WHO guidelines, and has published more than 140 peer-reviewed papers and books. She was awarded an OBE in 2011.
