Pelvic Shape, Fetal Positioning, and Obstetrical Bias: The Role of Pelvic Classification and Optimal Fetal Positioning in the Perpetuation of Bias in Childbirth

Our newest workshop will change your perception on everything you’ve learned up until this point and will shift the way you support every birth you attend moving forward.

Join Brittany Sharpe McCollum in a deep dive into the history of obstetrics and the role that pelvic classification, the theory of optimal fetal positioning, and scientific racism have played in perpetuating bias and contributing to increased intervention in childbirth through the modern day. This nine hour workshop - divided up into two half day sessions - takes participants on a journey through an obstetrical timeline, exploring and deconstructing the myths surrounding “ideal birthing hips,” “optimal fetal positioning,” x-ray and manual pelvimetry, and posterior babies. Brittany utilizes historical texts, anthropological studies, obstetrical theories and practice, and the foundation of pelvic biomechanics set forth in her Creating Space workshops in an interdisciplinary research-based approach to understanding where these theories began and how they continue to infiltrate childbearing care to this day. This timeline-based approach leads to the understanding of how inaccuracy and naivety filled in a predetermined narrative that shaped bias against certain birthing people and certain fetal positions in modern day obstetrics and midwifery. Bias against posterior fetal positioning is deconstructed and reassembled using up to date research, leaving participants with the tools, skills, and knowledge to support posterior babies in healthy vaginal births.

This workshop is nine hours of intense study, discussion, and practice. Due to the challenging and revelatory nature of the material, the course has been broken up into two half day sessions (four and a half hours each) to leave time for absorption, reflection, and contemplation.

ACNM speciality credit has been applied for.