Birth Place Lab

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Birth Place Lab In the Division of Midwifery at the University of British Columbia
Issues around access to high quality maternity health care across birth settings

September 28 30, 2014
Seattle, Washington

Next Week! 🎤 Join Birth Place Lab in welcoming Dr. JoLee Sasakamoose () as a speaker for the Justice and Equity in Perin...
10/14/2026

Next Week! 🎤 Join Birth Place Lab in welcoming Dr. JoLee Sasakamoose () as a speaker for the Justice and Equity in Perinatal Services Hub Seminar Series on October 22, 2026, at 12 PM PST/3 PM EST.

Learning objectives:
→ Understand how Indigenous governance frameworks shape culturally grounded models of perinatal care through Okawimaw Kanosimowin (Mother’s Bundle).
→ Examine the Cultural Responsiveness Framework and its application within this model, recognized as a global best practice through the Nature Awards for Inclusive Health Research.
→ Identify practical strategies to improve trust, access, and continuity of care.

Register here: qr.link/Jk1iF7

Reproductive justice is built in community. Meet ours! 🫱🏻‍🫲🏾Through the Justice and Equity in Perinatal Services (JEPS) ...
10/14/2026

Reproductive justice is built in community. Meet ours! 🫱🏻‍🫲🏾

Through the Justice and Equity in Perinatal Services (JEPS) Hub, the Birth Place Lab works with organizations across Canada to expand access to rights-based, equitable, accessible, and culturally safe perinatal care, free from mistreatment and discrimination. Our goal is for every service user to be met with unconditional positive regard during their pregnancy care.

Our equity and justice knowledge partners:
→ The National Council of Indigenous Midwives (NCIM) ()
→ Quality Maternal and Newborn Care (QMNC)
→ Science of Physiological Birth at University of British Columbia ()
→ The Uplift Lab (Uplift Lab at Oregon State University)

And the Pan-Canadian Women’s Health Coalition, with:
→ Alliance Against Violence & Adversity (AVA) ()
→ Canadian Women’s Heart Health Centre ()
→ The KnowledGE Mobilization (GEM) Hub
→ Healthy Pregnancy Hub ()
→ Impact Action
→ Nutarait Angirrasimatillavut/Keeping the Children Home (Keeping the Children Home - ᓄᑕᕋᐃᑦ ᐊᖏᕋᓯᒪᑎᓪᓚᕗᑦ )
→ S*x, Gender and Women’s Health Research Hub ()
→ S*xual Health And genito-Pelvic pain knowledge Empowerment (SHAPE) Hub
→ Women-Centred HIV Care (WCHC) Hub (.hub)

Thank you to every partner who makes this work possible.

Meet our partners: https://vist.ly/5nefw

Policymakers, health workers, and families: one open-access hub for rights-based perinatal care 🌍On the Quality Perinata...
10/14/2026

Policymakers, health workers, and families: one open-access hub for rights-based perinatal care 🌍

On the Quality Perinatal Services (QPS) Hub, you can:
→ Find evidence-based guidance on rights-based perinatal services
→ See how health systems are held accountable
→ Share information between communities and health systems, in both directions

The Hub pays particular attention to the needs of childbearing families in underserved and historically-excluded communities.

More than 150 perinatal care experts from around the world contributed to it. It was developed in partnership by the Birth Place Lab, University of British Columbia (University of British Columbia), The Firelight Group (.ca), and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (United Nations Human Rights).

The QPS Hub is one of the tools you can find through our Justice and Equity in Perinatal Services (JEPS) Hub.

Explore the QPS Hub → https://vist.ly/5napq

Have you explored our website? 🔎The Justice and Equity in Perinatal Services (JEPS) Hub is a project under the Birth Pla...
10/11/2026

Have you explored our website? 🔎

The Justice and Equity in Perinatal Services (JEPS) Hub is a project under the Birth Place Lab, devoted to furthering equitable perinatal care nationwide in Canada. You can find several useful tools via the JEPS Hub, including our "Ready to Use" resources.

We have assembled evidence-based resource lists for birthing people, care providers, and health systems that provide birth care. These resources are designed to further the equitable, respectful care that all pregnant people deserve.

Explore the "Ready to Use" tab → https://vist.ly/5mxqf

Have you explored our website? 🔎The Justice and Equity in Perinatal Services (JEPS) Hub is a project under the Birth Pla...
10/09/2026

Have you explored our website? 🔎

The Justice and Equity in Perinatal Services (JEPS) Hub is a project under the Birth Place Lab, devoted to furthering equitable perinatal care nationwide in Canada. You can find several useful tools via the JEPS Hub, including the JEPS Seminar Series.

JEPS seminars invite researchers, practitioners, policymakers, clinicians, and birthworkers to share transdisciplinary approaches and insights on effective methodologies for conducting health equity research. We invite speakers from across the globe to highlight issues of equity that persist within the current perinatal health landscape and discuss their insights on transforming the lived experiences of perinatal service users.

These seminars take place on a monthly basis during the academic year. You can access past seminar recordings via the JEPS Hub.

Explore the JEPS Seminar Series tab → https://vist.ly/5ms8t

Have you explored our website? 🔎The Justice and Equity in Perinatal Services (JEPS) Hub is a project under the Birth Pla...
10/08/2026

Have you explored our website? 🔎

The Justice and Equity in Perinatal Services (JEPS) Hub is a project under the Birth Place Lab.

Via JEPS, we aim to expand access to rights-based, equitable, accessible, and culturally-safe perinatal health services that are free from mistreatment and discrimination.​ Our goal is to ensure all service users are met with unconditional positive regard during their pregnancy care.

JEPS includes regional site members across Canada, who are implementing projects that work to reduce inequities and improve the experience of care for all. These members are supported by an advisory council, made up of Indigenous elders, community leaders, researchers, healthcare professionals, equity champions, and people with lived experience.

You can find several useful tools via the JEPS Hub– stay tuned as we share more about these!

Explore the JEPS webpage → https://vist.ly/5mgfm

Annually from October 1-7, we celebrate National Breastfeeding Week in Canada. Data show that where the Birth Place Lab ...
10/01/2026

Annually from October 1-7, we celebrate National Breastfeeding Week in Canada. Data show that where the Birth Place Lab is situated–on traditional and unceded lands of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Tsleil-waututh Nations in British Columbia–we have the highest breastfeeding initiation rate of any province or territory, at 98.6%! But nationwide, these rates sharply fall as babies grow, suggesting barriers that must be dismantled so that individuals can meet their breastfeeding goals.

Across various studies, our work has clarified parents' goals for breastfeeding, named the systemic obstacles that they face, and recognized perinatal care inequities that disproportionately impact marginalized groups of people. Everyone who wants to feed their baby from their body should be supported to–and we are not there yet.

Explore our curated bodyfeeding resources here → https://vist.ly/5kp39

09/30/2026

Today, we reflect on Canada's National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

In "Birthing injustice: unmasking structural racism and the illusion of reconciliation in indigenous perinatal care in Canada, insights from the RESPCCT study," (Phillips-Beck et al., 2026), Anishinaabe nurse-scholar Dr. Wanda Phillips-Beck analyzed Indigenous participants' responses to our large national survey on respectful perinatal care. They reported higher rates of mistreatment and disrespect than other racialized and white participants across nearly every measure, pointing to harms specific to anti-Indigenous racism.

Canada's history of colonial violence toward First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples is well-documented and ongoing. We hope that our shared research can be part of ensuring Indigenous peoples get the safe, respectful perinatal care they deserve.

Learn more → https://vist.ly/5kgzx

09/26/2026

Access to contraception and family planning is vital for reproductive justice.

On World Contraception Day, we're highlighting Dr. Laura Schummers, who previously worked at the Birth Place Lab as a Research Coordinator. Now a reproductive epidemiologist at the University of British Columbia, she has spent her career asking: What happens when we remove cost as a barrier to birth control?

Her research evaluating British Columbia's policy of universal free contraception, conducted with Dr. Wendy Norman, has helped shape how policymakers understand the answer. In recognition of her achievements, Dr. Schummers was named the Confederation of University Faculty Association of British Columbia (CUFA BC) Early in Career Award recipient in 2025. She is currently Assistant Professor of Health Outcomes, Collaboration for Outcomes Research and Evaluation in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at UBC.

Listen to this clip from her award interview, where she describes insights from her research on British Columbia's free contraception policy.

The 25th International Normal Labour and Birth Conference (NLBC) was held on September 14-16 in Berlin, Germany (). This...
09/25/2026

The 25th International Normal Labour and Birth Conference (NLBC) was held on September 14-16 in Berlin, Germany (). This year's conference was co-hosted by the Institute of Midwifery at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin () and the Berliner Hebammenverband (Berlin Midwives Association, ), assembling midwives, clinicians, researchers and educators to exchange ideas and strengthen international collaboration in perinatal care, united around the theme “Birth Matters: Rethinking Quality, Equity, and Women’s Health."

Birth Place Lab's own Kathrin Stoll presented during the session on Fear, Agency and Conflict in Maternity Care, exploring the study "'Going to the hospital to give birth was like going to battle': Experiences of women in Canada who declined recommended care during the intrapartum period," which she carried out with BPL's Yeganeh Dadkhah and Saraswathi Vedam.

Dr. Stoll also presented a poster on her study related to "Why Midwives Leave: Global prevalence and factors associated with turnover intention," and contributed to research shared in the poster on "Does witnessing childbirth shape perinatal preferences before first pregnancy?" (presented by Patrycja Surma).

Learn more about this year's conference → https://vist.ly/5jvz9

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Shaughnessy Building E416 4500 Oak Street
Vancouver, BC
V6H3N1

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