Birth Futures collects hopes and dreams of midwives worldwide and transforms them into speculative stories that imagine a better care system for birth.
Birth Futures is an initiative of platform wondermash and funded by Stimuleringsfonds.
Futuros del parto recopila esperanzas y sueños de obstetras de todo el mundo y los transforma en historias especulativas que imaginan un mejor sistema de atención al parto.
Exploring Birth Futures with local birth workers
Together with birth workers, healthcare professionals, researchers and creative makers, we develop birth stories in three geographically and culturally different locations in the world: Peru, India and the Netherlands.
During the workshop, participants spend half a day exploring the future of birth care and giving birth in 2100. They work out short birth stories of the future. They visualize these stories in mini booklets: zines.
At the end of the workshop, the stories are shared and the most important visions of the future were written down and mapped as pathways to the future.
“Stories are powerful things: they create our reality as much as they explain it.”
Alex Evans, The Myth Gap
Photos of Dutch Birth Futures Workshop on 11 May 2023 by Dorene van den Bosch and Marjolein Pijnappels
We are partnering with the College of Midwives of Lima Callao
We are thrilled to announce that in 2024 Birth Futures is spreading its wings to Peru, a country with a rich history in childbirth care dating back over two hundred years. Our workshops in Peru aim to address challenges faced by midwives within a system that often limits their recognition and impact.
Peru is the ideal place for Birth Futures workshops because of its rich history in childbirth care. Dating back over two hundred years to Latin America's first maternity hospital in Lima in 1826. However, challenges persist as midwives face a system that limits their recognition and impact.
This is why the participation of the Colegio Regional de Obstetras in Birth Futures is crucial. Together, we can empower midwives, preserve traditions, improve healthcare access, and challenge systemic injustices that harm their communities, particularly those in most marginalised contexts. We centre midwives’ voices and imagine what birth care might look like drawing from midwives’ experiences, cultures, histories, imaginations, and dreams.
Workshops planned for April 2024.
Estamos encantados de anunciar que en 2024 Birth Futures extenderá sus alas a Perú, un país con una rica historia en la atención del parto que se remonta a más de doscientos años. Nuestros talleres en Perú tienen como objetivo abordar los desafíos que enfrentan las obstetras dentro de un sistema que a menudo limita su reconocimiento e impacto.
Perú es ideal para los talleres de Futuros de Parto debido a su rica historia en cuidado obstétrico. A pesar de los desafíos que enfrentan las obstetras, la participación del Colegio Regional de Obstetras es crucial para empoderarlas y mejorar el acceso a la atención médica. Los talleres se llevarán a cabo en abril de 2024.
Dutch Birth Futures
On Thursday, May 11, 2023, the workshop Birth Futures the Netherlands took place in Utrecht. Dutch healthcare professionals, midwives, doulas, researchers, artists and creative makers imagined and explored possible futures for birth care and formulated concrete actions to bring the desired futures closer.
Trends and impacts in birth care
Various trends and developments have been identified in so-called Future Wheels, which have been subdivided into four categories in the post-workshop analysis: Nature in/and Human, (No) Limits to Medical Technology, The New Society, and Knowledge, Fear and Experience(s).
Pathways to the future
At the end of the workshop, the stories were shared and the most important visions of the future were written down.
Common themes were drawn from the stories and three desired futures were formulated.
Subsequently, participants brainstormed about possible actions, measures and visions that would lead to the desired futures. The ideas have been placed on a timeline and in the post-workshop analysis these cohesive actions have been aranged into “pathways to the future”.
Five future birth stories
Based on the impacts, the participants in duos and trios developed a story based on the “A Day In the Life” scenario.
A total of five birth stories from the year 2100 have been developed and visualized using creative materials such as photos, illustrations, colours, self-made sketches and texts.
Dutch healthcare professionals, midwives, doulas, researchers, artists and creative makers imagined and explored possible futures for birth care and formulated concrete actions to bring the desired futures closer.
Creating Birth Futures
Speculative designer Marjolein Pijnappels creates a speculative fiction based on ‘seeds’ from the local workshop. This story is visualized by animation artist Amritha Warrier into provocative ‘future worlds’ that allow ‘visitors’ to explore the future from the perspective of a pregnant person.
The stories will be showcased from 2024 through a digital platform and in physical locations worldwide. In response to the speculative birth stories, wondermash organizes workshops and lectures to start a broad dialogue about birth care now, and plant seeds for transformation of birth care in the future.
Sneak preview of the process, sketches by Amritha Warrier
Experimenting with different media, textures and technologies
Immersive 3D story world
Talks and pitches
TEDxEindhoven
Listen to wondermash’ Marjolein Pijnappels pitch her idea about speculating about birth using science fiction at the TEDx Eindhoven pitch event in 2022.
Day of the Midwife, Peru
Marjolein Pijnappels (wondermash) and Susana Ku Carbonell (McMasters University) delivered a keynote about Birth Futures during the Day of the Midwife hosted by the College of Midwives of Lima Callao on 31 August 2023.
Speculative Futures Amsterdam
Lightning Talk by Marjolein Pijnappels pitching the idea of mixing science fiction with birth stories, at Digital Society School Amsterdam.
Team
Marjolein Pijnappels / wondermash
project coordinator and writer
Amritha Warrier / @vanilla__punk
graphic and animation design
Dana Dijkgraaf / Dana Dijkgraaf Design
look and feel and logo design
Susana Ku Carbonell, McMaster University, Canada
local project coordinator Canada/Peru
Priya Sharma, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India
local project coordinator India
Partners
College of Midwives CROIII Lima – Callao
