Awards

• Nominated for Bert Roth Award for Best Work in Labour History 2024 (New Zealand)

Overview

Joan Skinner has been a midwife since 1976 and has seen extraordinary change, both in the way women are supported to give birth and in the social and political context in which they become mothers. Labour of Love weaves her own experiences as a midwife into the story of childbirth in Aotearoa: the increasing emphasis on technology and risk management, the return of midwifery autonomy, the re-acceptance of birth at home, and efforts to create birthing centres embedded in the communities they serve. It also describes her more recent work supporting the development of midwifery internationally, especially in countries across Asia, including Afghanistan and North Korea. Warm, engaging and important, Labour of Love is a story of a woman at her work, holding together the complexity of living and the growth of skill and wisdom. It is a reflection of what it means to be a midwife and a story of the fundamental connections that are made where living begins.

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9781991016423

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Joan Skinner has been a midwife since gaining her registration at St Helens Hospital Wellington in 1976. She has worked in small birth units and hospitals; been a homebirth midwife and a lead maternity carer; managed a major hospital tertiary delivery unit and a postnatal ward; and worked in a community-owned health service in a high-needs community and in an iwi health service. After gaining her PhD in midwifery in 2005 she was a senior lecturer at the Graduate School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. Within Aotearoa New Zealand she has provided consultancy services for the Accident Compensation Corporation, the Health and Disability Commissioner, several district health boards, the Ministry of Health and the coroner. Internationally she has had been a consultant for the World Health Organization, the United Nations Population Fund and the United States Agency for International Development, mainly in the Asia Pacific region. In 2020 she completed a master’s degree in creative writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington.

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