Speaking with: Hannah Dahlen on pregnancy care

Recent studies have revealed an emerging understanding of the benefits of birthing relationships through the childbearing process. Creating a healthy mental state through pregnancy, birth and postnatal care can have an important and tangible effect on the health of both child and mother.

Midwifery, one of the oldest professions in the world, has been increasingly overshadowed by technological development and obstetricians. But the benefits a midwife can provide through comfort, empowerment and understanding are something that can’t (yet) be emulated by medical science.

Dallas Rogers spoke with Hannah Dahlen, Professor of Midwifery and Higher Degree Research Director in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Western Sydney University, about encouraging a healthy pregnancy through relationships and empowerment, while also balancing this with traditional medical care. Dr Jacqueline Nelson, sociologist at the University of Technology Sydney and Dallas' wife, also contributes her personal journey through her current pregnancy.

Subscribe to The Conversation’s Speaking With podcasts on iTunes, or follow on Tunein Radio.

Music from:

• Free Music Archive Using air bubbles as lenses I see the outside. I suspect the world is not what it seems by Cherly KaCherly

• Free Music Archive Gnossienne Nº1 by Trans Alp

• Free Music Archive Atlantic State of Mind (A Long Winter) by mGee

• Free Music Archive Conscience by New Air

Dallas Rogers receives funding from the Community Broadcasting Foundation to produce short academic interviews for SoundMinds Radio (http://www.soundminds.com.au/author/dallas/). Segments of this interview were played on community radio in January 2016