Nursing conference today calling for 'birthing people to be used '

On the shop floor we very much still use 'woman'. It's only everywhere else that doesn't, weirdly.

Good post!

This.

I'm surprised the suggestion was 'birthing people' and not 'birthing folk'.

By the by (because reductive labels based on reproductive labour are offensive in and of themselves - we’re women) but “birthing people” is horribly offensive language when you consider that not all pregnant women will ever give birth.

Ffs women are mammals. They need to feel safe for labour to progress normally. They need to know the midwife is competent, caring and professional. They do not need to know the midwife's religious beliefs. Particularly if they adhere to a very fundamentalist, misogynist strain of religion.

Women and other birthing people.

Hello Name, what language would you prefer to be used as we work together?

Here's options on our websites and different leaflets that you can select your preferred language from.

It's not difficult. There is no reason to offend and erase 99% of the population this involves to try and virtue signal.

I'm absolutely appalled @Nutellaspoon

Birthing parent is completely ridiculous - it's incredibly insensitive in the context of a woman having a miscarriage.
It would also be inappropriate for a woman having an abortion.
It doesn't really cover it if a woman is overdue and her body is steadfastly refusing to go into labour.
What is that woman after she has given birth. When perhaps she is a haemorrhaging person?

I encourage you to study this paper and draw it to the attention of others who have signed off this policy and have a rethink.

I keep one in my bag at work, ready to back up any "discussions". Got a policy discussion coming up in my own department soon....

internal-journal.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgwh.2022.818856/full?fbclid=IwAR1GmMyg9yC58i3SargXSSpsw1NgaVoD6raB8cz40YuEgx9VxFTr5A4m4OQ

Also remember when SANDS, the neonatal death and stillbirth charity had to eat humble pie after an outcry at the removal of the word mother? Women who have lost a child feel very strongly about being able to call themselves "Mother".

Fucks sake. Why. Men with prostate cancer are still men. Men have vasectomies. Why always and only women who have to give yo their own description? I'm not even that bothered about my femaleness, very grateful for no more periods. If you asked me I'd say I felt like a man inside, but that doesn't change the fact my body can get pregnant!!

to me, birthing people means the midwife and the obstetrician. but of course my protected characteristics do not count...

We've just developed a policy at work for miscarriage and it's ladened with 'birthing parent'.

Any HCP who pushes this ideology is unfit to practice.

Well I can tell you when registering my pregnancy it made me feel alienated and questioned the competency of the supposed professionals looking after me. I'm pregnant, at this point my sex is a fucking given.
Am hoping my refusal to align myself to a gender identity/ticked other, put My Sex is Female/ will mean I at least get someone versed in biology. Quite important for a midwife I'd say.

I wonder how many non-binary/transmen service users this maternity dept have on an annual basis? As in, is this amount of consideration (time, money, headspace) justified by the numbers of people involved? And what evidence is there that changing language for all service users makes a measurable difference to the non-binary/transman users?

Stupid dickhead. In thrall to the religion.

Maybe because anyone who is 'birthing' has rather conclusively proved that whether their 'gender' is 'nonbinary' , 'catgender', 'maverique' or any of the endless possibilities , their sex is definitely one of the two available and it ain't 'man'?
Pregnancy and being a birth mother is a function of sex, not 'gender'.

By all means on a case by case basis use different words for individual patients.