Books

Children, Families and Communities, 4th edition, looks at the ways in which children, families and communities influence each other and how different contexts affect them all. There is a focus on research and theoretical grounding. Each chapter highlights both the contexts and consequences of the different subject areas. Each chapter highlights both the contexts and consequences of the various topics relating to children's lives. The new edition has been substantially revised to reflect the latest research in the field. There are five new chapters covering: giftedness; Children, media and technology; bullying; children in emergencies; and policy support for children, families and communities.

This book investigates why women choose ‘birth outside the system’ and makes connections between women’s right to choose where they birth and violations of human rights within maternity care systems. Choosing to birth at home can force women out of mainstream maternity care, despite research supporting the safety of this option for low-risk women attended by midwives. When homebirth is not supported as a birthplace option, women will defy mainstream medical advice, and if a midwife is not available, choose either an unregulated careprovider or birth without assistance. This book examines the circumstances and drivers behind why women nevertheless choose homebirth by bringing legal and ethical perspectives together with the latest research on high-risk homebirth (breech and twin births), freebirth, birth with unregulated careproviders and the oppression of midwives who support unorthodox choices. Stories from women who have pursued alternatives in Australia, Europe, Russia, the UK, the US, Canada, the Middle East and India are woven through the research. Insight and practical strategies are shared by doctors, midwives, lawyers, anthropologists, sociologists and psychologists on how to manage the tension between professional obligations and women’s right to bodily autonomy. This book, the first of its kind, is an important contribution to considerations of place of birth and human rights in childbirth.