Ep 107 Amanda Firth on maternal inequities, forced migration and need for increased interpreters

Ep 107  (http://ibit.ly/Re5V) Amanda Firth on maternal inequities, forced migration and need for increased interpreters 

#PhDMidwives #research #midwifery #forcedmigration #maternal #inequities #interpreters #CALD #huddersfielduni

research link t.ly/a7Eol 

What if the biggest barrier to mental health support in pregnancy isn’t stigma, but language? We sit down with Amanda Firth to unpack the hidden seams of maternity care: where well-meaning screening tools miss people, where interpreters enter too late, and where equity hinges on small, repeatable habits in busy clinics.

Amanda traces a path from home births and district hospitals to a PhD on refugee and asylum-seeking women’s perinatal mental health. She reveals how identity, migration status, and access to interpreters shape outcomes, and why midwives sometimes reword screening tools just to get women the help they clearly need. We break down trauma-informed care that protects both women and clinicians, and explore the overlooked solution of training midwives and interpreters together so mental health conversations become safer, clearer, and culturally grounded.

Beyond the consult room, we tackle workforce realities: staffing ratios, burnout, and the urgency of continuity of carer. Amanda shares how to translate research beyond paywalls into practice people can use—turning dense papers into plain language and peer learning that sticks. It’s an honest, hopeful look at building fair maternity systems, starting with what you can change today while the bigger machinery catches up.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Amanda’s Path Into Midwifery
• 4:46 Home Births And Global Travel
• 8:44 Advocacy Across Cultures
• 11:46 Inequity And Identity In Outcomes
• 14:01 From First-Gen Scholar To Lecturer
• 18:36 Hospital Practice And Team Culture
• 23:31 Move Into Academia
• 28:36 Clinical Academic Roles Explained
• 31:46 Perinatal Mental Health Focus
• 36:56 Researching Refugee And Asylum-Seeking Women
• 41:31 Screening Tools And Unseen Barriers
• 45:48 Trauma-Informed Care In Strained Systems
• 49:26 Postdoc: Working With Interpreters
• 54:26 Training Together To Bridge Language Gaps
• 59:06 Supervisors, Mentors, And Method
• 1:03:46 Surviving A PhD In A Pandemic