Perspectives on Midwifery and Parenthood (eBook)

The book Perspectives on Midwifery and Parenthood explores contemporary issues relating to parenthood and midwifery. This book bridges a gap in the literature, where it highlights the close and unique relationships that midwives, nurses, doctors, other health care professionals and students enjoy with women and men during their transition to parenthood. Midwives work in close contact with and address the diverse needs of women and men during one of the most critical life's transitions, preconception, pregnancy, childbirth and early parenting and its long term implications on the psychosocial, emotional, physical and spiritual wellbeing of parents and infants. 

The chapters cover the transition and preparation for parenthood, midwives and parental-fetal-tie in pregnancy, perinatal mental health, maternal well-being, infertility, repeated loss and surrogacy, supporting early parenting following preterm birth, adolescent pregnancy and early parenthood, social challenges and parenthood including drug and alcohol use in pregnancy, intimate partners' violence, migrants and transition to parenthood, fathers' transition to parenthood, diversity of family formation - LGBTQ+ parents, breastfeeding, the role of spirituality during pregnancy, and midwifery and parenthood. Each person is unique and so is the response to parenthood, as the mother, father and family embark on this new lifeworld, a lifelong commitment.

The book is a compendium of contemporary research depicting the strengths, opportunities, and recommendations how midwives and other health care professionals can nurture optimal, compassionate, respectful person- and family-centred care during pregnancy and early parenting, the transition to parenthood. 

Rita Borg Xuereb, Ph.D., M.Sc., R.M., R.N., Dip. Educ. (Adult), PQDip. (Mid.Ed)., is currently an Associate Professor of Midwifery with the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Malta. She worked as a nurse for several years prior to embarking on a midwifery career in 1988. Her midwifery practice spans over two decades where she practised in the antenatal, birth and the postnatal areas, including parentcraft/Antenatal Education services and the neonatal intensive care unit.  She subsequently joined the University of Malta as an academic in 2002. She was the lead in the setting up of the Department of Midwifery, the Head of the Department (2009-2018). She was a Faculty Research Ethics Committee member (2015-2019); a member of the Council for Nursing and Midwives, Malta (previously the Nursing and Midwifery Board) representing midwives, (1991-2013), and former President of the Malta Midwives Association (2000-2007).

She was a member of the management committee for Malta to COST Action IS0907, Childbirth Cultures and Consequences: Creating a dynamic EU framework for optimally maternity care (2011-14) and the coordinator for Malta on the Babies Born Better survey (2014-2022).

She was also an elected Board member of the International Confederation of Midwives, ICM, representing Southern Europe, held the education portfolio for the ICM Board (2014-2020) and represented ICM on several important international fora, including, WHO, UNFPA, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation projects. Presently she is the chairperson of the Scientific Program Planning Committee of the ICM 33^rd Triennial Congress, 11-14 June 2023, Bali, Indonesia.

Rita Borg Xuereb was an Honorary Associate Fellow with Newcastle University, United Kingdom (2013-2019). She is also a peer reviewer of several international journals and sits on the editorial Board of several International and local Journals on Midwifery and Women's Sexual and Reproductive Health. Her areas of interest include midwifery education and research, transition to and preparation for parenthood, perinatal mental health, family planning, maternal and infant health.

Julie Jomeen is Professor of Midwifery, and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Health and Human Sciences at Southern Cross University, Australia. She has recently relocated from the University of Hull, UK where she was dean of the Faculty of Health and led a Research Group for Maternal, Reproductive Health within the Faculty. She maintains honorary Professorial status at Hull. A key focus of her work is exploring issues of perinatal mental health and psychological health in childbearing women utilising mixed methods approaches; a programme of research which has led to strong collaborations in relation to national and international research, service development work and practitioner training initiatives. Other research interests include women's choice and decision-making and practitioner decision making. She has also been involved in national and international curriculum development in midwifery. Julie is an Adjunct Professor at Memorial University Newfoundland and a Visiting Professor at Suzhou University, China. She is a previous associate editor for BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth and Women and Birth and a recent outgoing Chair of the Society for Reproductive and Infant Psychology - an international society.

Julie has been on several research grant awarding panels for the NIHR, UK and most recently the Deputy Chair of the HEE/NIHR Integrated Clinical Academic Programme for non-medics. She reviews for grant awarding bodies both nationally and internationally. She is currently a member of two EU COST pan-European research networks; RiseUpPPD focused on filling gaps in PPD research, practice and social awareness by developing updated reviews fostering research efforts on the standardization of diagnostic criteria, the development of adequate screening tools and cost-effectiveness evaluation of prevention and treatment programs and Devotion focussed on the prevalence of birth trauma and work toward universal measures of measuring, assessing and preventing birth trauma.