From Midwife to Lead Perinatal Practitioner: A Utopian Vision

The professional title ‘midwife’ is predicated on the understanding that people who access their services have a normative relationship between their gender and assigned sex. As trans and non-binary people increasingly require access to midwifery services, this paper proposes an alternative professional title which is inclusive and liberates midwives from continuously reinscribing the sex/gender binary in their nomenclature. We work with Levitas’s Utopia as Method framework to propose the title of Lead Perinatal Practitioner. Working through the archaeological, ontological and architectural modes, we explain the rationale for each component part of the title. ‘Lead’ foregrounds the profession’s relationship with autonomy which is considered foundational but threatened by encroaching medicalisation. ‘Perinatal’ encompasses not just the birthing person but the neonate and the physiological process and timeframe encapsulating pregnancy and birth currently absent. ‘Practitioner’ captures the reflexivity, skill and active engagement already inscribed in allied healthcare professions who use this title. We argue that when combined, they signal a trailblazing contribution towards the eradication of gender inequalities in the reproductive arena by uncoupling the profession from patriarchal oppression inscribed in the sex/gender binary which has hitherto been positioned as the sine qua non of midwifery.