Royal College of Midwives issued an apology after it removed the words “women” and “mother” from its new guidance regarding handling sleeping babies.
Since then, the RCM has removed this guidance from its website. It provided instructions to healthcare professionals about how babies should be laid to rest.
While ‘Parents are often mentioned over 16 bullet points, one paragraph about post-natal mothers was particularly notable.
According to it, “Postnatals in Hospital should have easy Access to the Call Bell System and be Shown How to Use It. A bed-side cot should be available for baby while in Hospital.
The choice of wording prompted an angry backlash from women when it was shared on Twitter, with one describing it as ‘virtue signalling to a woke agenda.’
RCM has taken the safer sleep guidance down. The safest advice mentions postnatal persons’ rather than the words women’ and mother’.
After facing backlash on social media, the organisation issued a public apology for exclusion of mothers and women in favor of “postnatal people”.
Milli Hill, best-selling author and feminist wrote: “New safe sleep guidance by RCM doesn’t mention women or mothers. They are now “postnatal persons”. This is despite safety differences that have been shown to exist if the baby shares a room with the breastfeeding mom. [or a]Non-nursing mum/dad
For the record: sex in baby sleeping info. When co-sleeping …’, research shows that breastfeeding mothers behave differently than formula feeding moms and other parents.
Others on Twitter were also furious at the exclusion of mothers and women from the document. Cathy Devine posted: “Please do not replace mothers with postnatal women.” This is extremely offensive for many women who gave birth. Others.
Franziska Haber stated that “Women” is not an abstract concept that can be redefined and erased whenever one wants. It insults intelligence and our dignity to deconstruct us using language. This is unacceptable.
Users on Twitter criticized the lack of words for ‘women and’mothers’ in Royal College of Midwives’ latest publication regarding sleeping babies
An anonymous midwife posted the following: “Do you define in the document what postnatal person?” You could also call a baby a postnatal individual. A father could be too. Health care workers who take care of women after birth could also be considered.
“I’m a midwife, and I find this language confusing. [It is]Very vague even for non-English speakers.
The RCM responded to backlash by issuing an apology, and removing the document from its website.
RCM apologized for not including women in their recent safer sleeping guideline. It was an unfortunate oversight, particularly as the RCM is committed to ensuring that women remain in the conversation about pregnancy and birth.
We have temporarily removed the information from our website, while we correct and revise this omission.
The NHS was hit with backlash earlier this year over “woke propaganda” messages that urged people to include gender pronouns in their emails to celebrate LGBT Month.
NHS Health Education England posted a message on Twitter telling its followers that they would be “focusing on misgendering”, which is one the most frequent unintentional errors made by transgender people.
This encouraged them to include their pronouns into the email signature. It provides clarity and inspires others.
The Lancet, one of the world’s most influential medical journals, tweeted an image of the cover of its October issue, which displayed a sentence replaced the word ‘women’ with ‘bodies with vaginas’
And in June, the NHS removed a glossary from its website about ‘equality, diversity and inclusion’ from public view after it was criticised for being ‘highly divisive’.
The document, entitled ‘Glossary A-Z’, covered themes running from A for ‘allyship’, X for ‘xenophobia’. The entry under W for ‘white fragility’ described the term as ‘a state in which even a minimum of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves by white people’.
Tory MP Neil O’Brien tweeted: ‘A number of the concepts in this alphabet of woke are highly divisive – they shouldn’t be being officially pushed like this.’
Last month, The Lancet, one of the world’s most influential medical journals, tweeted an image of the cover of its latest issue, which displayed a sentence that replaced the word ‘women’ with ‘bodies with vaginas’.
For comment, we reached out to The Royal College of Midwives