For many people, childbirth is among the most significant and vulnerable experiences of their lives. However, it is also one in which patient autonomy and epistemic agency is routinely compromised. Birth trauma, often stemming from poor consent practices and breakdowns in communication between patients and healthcare professionals (HCPs), is increasingly recognised as a serious and widespread harm. This interdisciplinary workshop aims to advance both the ethical understanding of care, communication and consent during childbirth, the phenomenon of birth trauma and its implications for obstetric care, using the lens of birth planning and patient-HCP interaction. 

The workshop will take place 10:30-16:00 on 6th August 2026, at the University of Nottingham. Please use the registration form below to register your attendance.

Schedule

10:15 Welcome coffee + tea

10:45 Welcome and introductions

11:00 Taryn Knox (Otago Bioethics Centre) 'Is pregnancy a disease?'

11:30 Rebecca Matthews (University of Reading)  'Consent under Ideology: Rethinking Informed Consent in U.K. Maternity Care'

12:00 Lunch served

12:30 Roundtable: 'What do we talk about when we talk about birth plans?'

This roundtable will consider the role of birth plans in both enabling patient autonomy and epistemic agency, and the extent to which reliance on birth plans may give rise to new ethical dilemmas when labour unfolds in unpredicted or unpredictable ways.

13:15 Susan Hogan (University of Derby)  'Birth Shock!'

13:45 Chloe Romanis (University of Durham) 'Law, Choice, and the Future of Birth'

14:15 Tea and coffee

14:30 Roundtable – 'Barriers to communication in the delivery room'

This roundtable will focus on factors inhibiting fully transparent and supportive communication between birthing patients and HCPs, and the particular ways in which these impact (a) patient autonomy, (b) informed consent, and (c) epistemic agency and trust.

15:15 Ceri Wilson (Anglia Ruskin University) 'Can We Prevent Birth Trauma?'

15:45 Closing remarks

16:00 Event ends

Recent medical ethics literature on childbirth has repeatedly drawn attention to violations of patient autonomy (up to and including obstetric violence) in this sphere, pointing in particular to routine failures of standard informed consent practices; difficulties in managing perceived maternal-foetal conflict; and the peculiar vulnerability of the birthing patient given the intimacy of the body parts exposed and manipulated by HCPs during labour and delivery. The omnipresence of socially and morally loaded expectations surrounding childbirth, and the unpredictable nature of childbirth (especially for nulliparous patients), represent complicating factors that render ethical practice challenging even when all actors approach the situation in good faith. Epistemic injustice, which may manifest in failures to hear and accept patient representations of their own experience, but also frequently manifests as hostility and distrust directed at HCPs, has clear practical consequences in undermining immediate delivery of care, but may have further implications for the patient-HCP relationship and thus for post-natal care and for the transition to motherhood.

Some research in this area paints a picture of traumatic childbirth experiences as straightforwardly resulting from failures of medical ethics, misogyny, and/or malpractice. However, recent work also motivates us to understand the realities of obstetric management as more complex for the majority of birthing patients and HCPs. As one recent feature article in JME and discussion in response suggests, the best laid plans may come up - in the unpredictable course of delivery - against ethical dilemmas not readily reducible to a balance of rights and duties or to the presence/absence of consent. Communication between patients and HCPs appears to be central to both managing expectations and building the kind of trust and understanding that enables HCPs to better respond to sudden complications or changes while respecting and protecting birthing patients’ autonomy.

However, when philosophers write about the need for communication and informed consent in abstract or general terms, there is a risk that we leave gaps which can only be filled by examining the actual ways in which patients and HCPs experience their interactions, and identifying the concrete phenomena creating barriers to that communication. Interdisciplinary work between philosophers and social scientists can help us to gain a more nuanced understanding of these realities of obstetric management and the patient-HCP relationship. This workshop aims to contribute to precisely this endeavour, by bringing together philosophical lenses with practical bioethics, psychology, medical sociology, and health and social care perspectives.