‘Threads Of Protest: Human Rights in Childbirth’ Challenging Obstetric Violence and Human Rights Abuses During Pregnancy and Birth

It is February 1981. A first-time mum has been subjected to a non-consensual stretch and sweep, then a failed induction, and now she is under general anaesthetic while a surgeon performs a caesarean section. In the middle of the operation, she wakes up. Yet she is paralysed, blind, unable to shout. She hears the doctors talk over her. Panicked, she presumes the operating team think she has died. Internally and silently, she screams: ‘But I’m alive! I’m alive! I’m alive!’

The woman was my mum, and the baby was me. I’ve heard that story dozens of times, along with the awful treatment she experienced during her 2-week post-natal stay on the maternity ward. It was so bad, my mum refused to go back to the same hospital for her second birth. Obstetric violence had therefore formed the backdrop to my first 2 weeks of life and had left my mum with terrifying memories.

Twenty-eight years later when I had my own baby, the system was still abusive and dehumanising. I left the hospital in a state of confusion, unsure of whether the treatment I had been subjected to was normal. Was it right that I had not been provided with the pros and cons of each medical intervention? Why had I not been warned of the potentially serious consequences of induction of labour?  Why had no one ever told me that I had the right to say “no” to the interventions that had been carried out on me?

These questions led me to academia and a doctorate exploring women’s experiences of freebirthing in the UK.  Some of the interviewees in my study had experienced appalling maternity ‘care,’ and their accounts were often littered with obstetric violence. Bullying, coercion, non-consensual interventions – each time I heard another story containing these abuses, I felt sad, angry and frustrated.

As I delved further into the topic of obstetric violence, it opened up a world of systemic gender-based abuse taking place in maternity units all over the globe. Forced sterilisations and caesarean sections, neglect, withholding of treatment, overmedicalisation, women being ‘practised’ on by trainee medics, hitting, slapping, humiliation – my mind spins each time I come across another account. The misogyny inherent in these abuses is unmistakeable. In a system that is patriarchal and hierarchical both historically and in the present day, it is perhaps unsurprising that health carers become vectors for that misogyny.

Challenging obstetric violence in the UK is not easy. Our society’s obsession with science and technology, its reverence of medical professionals, and its distrust of anything that cannot be measured or quantified, means our maternity system has become depersonalised and technocratic. Alongside this is the social perception of how good mothers should behave: obedient to medical instruction, self-sacrificial, grateful to NHS services and staff, and accepting of birth as undignified and traumatic.

I read somewhere that there are 3 necessary steps to challenging obstetric violence. The first is that women and birthing people need to be made aware of their rights. The second is that health care professionals need to understand the rights of the people they are caring for. And third, there needs to be mechanisms in place to ensure those rights can be exercised, enforced, and protected.

In an attempt to contribute to the first step and with funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and King’s College London, I decided to create a crochet exhibition on human rights in childbirth. Crochet may appear an odd vehicle for this message, but in fact women have been protesting with thread for centuries, ranging from Greek myth to pussy hats and the recent surge in interest in yarnbombing and guerrilla knitting (see Viva Vittoria and Roses Against Violence as examples).

My own free to attend exhibition ‘Threads Of Protest: Human Rights in Childbirth,’ will be displayed at The Atkinson in Southport from July-September 2025 and then at The Curiosity Cabinet on The Strand in London from September 2025-January 2026. It will include co-created crochet pieces from professional artists and charities, plus a large public engagement piece. For the latter, I am inviting everyone to donate a crocheted granny square (or knitted square) using any pattern, any yarn and any colour. I just ask that squares are around 15cm x 15cm (6 inches x 6 inches) in size.  I will then yarnbomb as much of the gallery space with the squares as possible to highlight the obstetric violence and human rights abuses that pregnant women and people endure in maternity systems around the world.

Do I expect the crochet exhibition to eradicate obstetric violence overnight? Of course not. But what I do hope to do is to bring people together for a joint cause, raise awareness and to encourage people who do not know anything about the subject to investigate further. Although mine and my mum’s birth experiences have been overshadowed by obstetric violence, I hope that we can start to change the tide for the next generation.

If you would like to get involved in Threads of Protest, you can send your granny square(s) to:

Threads of Protest

PO Box 239

Liverpool

L37 8YU

For more information, see https://www.gemmamckenzie.co.uk/threadsofprotest, and you can follow the progress of the project on Instagram at @dr_gemma_mckenzie

The charities involved in the project are: AIMS (Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services), Refugee Women Connect, Chrysalis and Apex Trust. The artists involved include Michelle Freeman, Madeleine Famurewa, Barbara Touati-Evans, Helen Davies and Sophie Neville. The project also includes input from Dr Mari Greenfield and Jana Vodičková.