Engender blog
GUEST BLOG: Pregnancy and parenthood in a pandemic
We've been working with the ALLIANCE and The Health and Social Care Academy to gather information about experiences of pregnancy and maternity services during Covid-19 from women across Scotland. Alongside our work, we're sharing a series of guest blogs reflecting on those experiences. Here, Madeline Cross explores her experience of becoming a first-time mum during the pandemic.
I'd like to start with my own caveat. In May 2020, I became pregnant for the first time, and because of that a 'pandemic pregnancy' is all I know. I'll never have a first pregnancy again, so I'll never really be able to communicate what was lost, or what was gained, just because of timing. I know that people have had harder experiences than I did, both during the pandemic, and at other times. And yet really, I don't know much about that at all. I only really know what happened to me.
GUEST BLOG: Pregnancy and bereavement during Covid-19
We've been working with the ALLIANCE and The Health and Social Care Academy to gather information about experiences of pregnancy and maternity services during Covid-19 from women across Scotland. Alongside our work, we're sharing a series of guest blogs reflecting on those experiences. Here, Kerry Walsh reflects on navigating pregnancy and grief alongside the challenges of the pandemic.
[Content Note: this blog discusses baby loss and mentions infertility, please read with care.]
Have you experienced any of the following during Covid-19?
- Pregnancy
- Miscarriage/Baby Loss
- Infertility
As I looked at this question on the survey, realising that I could tick every box, I reflected upon the past two years, and the care that I received during some of the most joyful, exciting, painful and challenging periods of my life.
GUEST BLOG: Giving birth during the pandemic
We've been working with the ALLIANCE and The Health and Social Care Academy to gather information about experiences of pregnancy and maternity services during Covid-19 from women across Scotland. Alongside our work, we're sharing a series of guest blogs reflecting on those experiences. Here, Barbara Flynn shares her experience of giving birth in the summer of 2020.
In March 2020, when lockdown was imposed, I was six months pregnant with my second child. Overnight, my thoughts went from, ‘I think I’ll book a pregnancy massage’ to, ‘will our lives ever return to normal?!’. I also went from eagerly anticipating my midwife appointments to agonising about having to go into hospital to give birth – the last place, it seemed, that anyone wanted to be now! As our street is near one of the main thoroughfares to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, ambulances speeding past became a familiar background noise, each one a grim reminder of my own impending trip to hospital.
GUEST BLOG: Pregnancy in lockdown: Leaving joy out of it
We've been working with the ALLIANCE and The Health and Social Care Academy
to gather information about experiences of pregnancy and maternity
services during Covid-19 from women across Scotland. Alongside our work,
we're sharing a series of guest blogs reflecting on those experiences.
Here, Kirsty Kinloch talks about the uncertainty surrounding Covid-19 and pregnancy in 2020.
The Coronavirus pandemic, lockdowns and restrictions changed the whole experience for those who were pregnant during 2020 and 2021. It’s an anxious experience in normal times, but add a deadly virus, the removal of your entire support system and healthcare restrictions, and you’ve got a recipe for worry. When I think back over my pregnancy and the early life of my daughter, I am sad to say that the overwhelming feeling is one of disappointment.
GUEST BLOG: My “unremarkable” pandemic pregnancy
We've been working with the ALLIANCE and The Health and Social Care Academy to gather information about experiences of pregnancy and maternity services during Covid-19 from women across Scotland. Alongside our work, we're sharing a series of guest blogs reflecting on those experiences. Here, Sarah Robinson Galloway looks back on pregnancy in the early stages of the pandemic.
It’s Boxing Day 2019, I’m in my sister-in-law’s bathroom early in the morning doing a pregnancy test. I already knew I was pregnant, despite it only being two or three weeks, this was just to confirm so I wasn’t second-guessing myself. It’s positive, I tell my husband and we’re excited to be on our second pregnancy journey. We weren’t worried, we had done this before and had one beautiful wee girl already.
RSSDownloads
Engender Briefing: Pension Credit Entitlement Changes
From 15 May 2019, new changes will be introduced which will require couples where one partner has reached state pension age and one has not (‘mixed age couples’) to claim universal credit (UC) instead of Pension Credit.
Engender Parliamentary Briefing: Condemnation of Misogyny, Racism, Harassment and Sexism
Engender welcomes this Scottish Parliament Debate on Condemnation of Misogyny, Racism, Harassment and Sexism and the opportunity to raise awareness of the ways in which women in Scotland’s inequality contributes to gender-based violence.
Gender Matters in Social Security: Individual Payments of Universal Credit
A paper calling on the Scottish Government to automatically split payments of Universal Credit between couples, once this power is devolved to the Scottish Parliament.
Gender Matters Manifesto: Twenty for 2016
This manifesto sets out measures that, with political will, can be taken over the next parliamentary term in pursuit of these goals.
Scottish NGO Briefing for UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women
Joint briefing paper for the UN Rapporteur on Violence Against Women.
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