Many women sought her out after births in which they had been disempowered and which they described in imagery similar to that used about rape. So she started a Birth Crisis counselling network of women willing to listen to their experiences and help them find strength to cope.
The tradition of activism and love of challenges that she inherited from her mother she also shared with her daughters. She very much enjoyed being present when Tess gave birth in water in the family home, and her social and political awareness was sharpened by those of her daughters who are radical lesbian feminists. One of her books, Talking with Children about Things that Matter, she co-authored with her psychologist daughter, Celia.
For her the most important thing was that she passed on and shared with other women the courage, commitment and understanding needed in the struggle to enable women’s voices to be heard.
POSTSCRIPT
Sheila did not get the melodramatic death she imagined in this scenario. She died at her home in Oxfordshire at the age of 86 on 11 April 2015 – shortly after completing this autobiography.
She approached death with the same attitude as birth – questioning the need for various medical interventions and making her own choices. She set down her wishes in an Advance Decision to Refuse Treatment and gave one of her daughters power to represent her should she lose the capacity to take decisions for herself at the time.
Her family carried her body in a brightly decorated cardboard coffin of her choice to a natural burial site. They read some of Sheila’s own poetry at the grave and sprinkled in earth, sprigs of rosemary and camellia blossom from her beloved garden.
With my beautiful mother and baby brother
My brother David
Teachers found me difficult
Father’s photograph of a family picnic
David in Paris, working for
the World Student Federalists
Young wife – photo by my father-in-law
We married each other in the Quaker Meeting House, Oxford, 4 October 1952
Pregnant diplomatic wife, 1956
Strasbourg in the early 1950s
With Shirley and Bernard Williams at my sister-in-law Helge’s wedding, 1955
Celia’s home birth in Strasbourg, 1956
Enjoying parenthood, 1957
Celia’s first birthday cake
Celia with my mother Clare
Tom Quad, Oxford:
Jenny, Nell, Celia, Polly, Tess
Playing with Mr Potato Head
just after Polly was born, 1961
My retreat – the playpen
Polly at the helm off France
Polly, Jenny, Nell and Richard Ifill in
the paddock with some of our pets
Ocho Rios, Jamaica, 1965
With Polly near Bages in the 1970s
Us together three days before Uwe had an eye
removed because of a melanoma, 1970
The Lord in judgement (triptych)
Happy with Laura and Sam
Sam’s waterbirth
A baby-friendly conference
My family remember me always on the phone,
always listening to women
Launching Freedom and Choice in Childbirth with Michel Odent and Felicity Kendal, 1987
Nancy Durrell McKenna (left) contributed
her photos to half a dozen of my books
An NCT coffee break
With Wendy Savage
With Polly collecting for Lentils for Dubrovnik
With Joan Gibson and Ruth Forbes
Launching Woman’s Experience of Sex with Nell, Celia, Polly and Jenny, 1983
Tess breastfeeding Sam
Our fisherman neighbour’s door
to nowhere
Wonderful light and studio space for my painting in southern France
Bages cemetery
Uwe in the bath
January in Morocco
Great is Artemis of the Ephesians
Gruissan Plage, 1968
We love Italy
Sam’s first Christmas
Kingston Airport: Seeing off
Polly and Mutti
With Miranda at Tess’s wedding
We Love Polly website, welovepolly.org
Inventing our family rituals:
burying Sam’s placenta
The Birthrights Rally – protesting at an obstetrician’s decision that in the
Royal Free Hospital all women must give birth on their backs, 1982
Buckingham Palace, 1982
Family kitchen with Sam
My kitchen: a riot of colour
Set for a special occasion
Roses, cake and chocolates on my 85th birthday
Sheila’s coffin in the dining room, 12 April 2015
My special thanks
Lesley Page, CBE, President of the Royal College of Midwifery and an inspiring friend.
My assistant, Sue Allen, for her skills and commitment.
All the ideas contributed by Rosie Denmark and my new editor Jan Heron.
Hazel Wilce, who keeps the house shining so that I can concentrate on my work.
My husband, Uwe, for his superb long-term memory and his records of important events in our lives, of our international journeys and of hard facts. Whenever I seek a date Uwe can come up with it.
Dr Luke Zander, long-term friend and colleague, Founder of the Royal Society of Medicine Forum on Maternity and the Newborn.
Dr Ethel Burns for all her exciting work on labouring and giving birth in water.
Helena Kennedy QC for her tireless work for equality.
Celia and Jenny, sharing my struggle for social justice and helping create a feminist revolution.
My daughter, Tess McKenney, who has supported and nurtured me in every way possible. Without her this book would never have seen the light of day. She is responsible for the illustrations, for stimulating my energy, and keeping me focused.
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3 Private correspondence, 1950
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20 Pankhurst S. The Suffragette: The History of the Women’s Militant Suffrage Movement: 1905–1910 Sturgis & Walton 1911, available at archive.org/details/suffragettehisto00pankuoft
21 Kit
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22 Kitzinger S. Women as Mothers, Fontana Books, Glasgow, 1978, p142–143, 162
23 Spare Rib, Issue 36, 1975
24 Expectant Fathers, National Childbirth Trust, London 1974
25 O’Driscoll K. and Meagher D. Active Management of Labor, Sanders W (ed), Clinical and Obstetric Gynecology Supplement 1, 1980.
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29 Winterton Report House of Commons Health Committee, London 1992
30 Changing Childbirth Department of Health, London 1993
31 Micklethwait L., Beard R., and Shaw K. Expectations of a Pregnant Woman in Relation to Her Treatment British Medical Journal, 1978;2:188
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33 O’Driscoll K., et al. Active Management of Labour – care of the fetus British Medical Journal, December 1977
34 Chalmers I. Confronting therapeutic ignorance British Medical Journal 2008;337:a841;246-247
35 Klaus M., Kennell J. Maternal–Infant Bonding, Rosby, 1976
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37 Garcia J. Community Health Council News 70, 72, 1981
38 Bowlby J. Psycho-Analysis and Childcare in Sutherland J. (ed) Psycho-analysis and Contemporary Thought, Hogarth Press, 1958
39 Kitzinger S., and Nilsson L., Being Born, Dorling Kindersley, 1986
40 Guardian Women, 1986
41 Medical Defence Union Consent to Treatment London 1974
42 Bourne G. Pregnancy Pan Books, London 1984
43 Thompson W.I., The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light Palgrave Macmillan, 1996
44 Toronto Globe 25 June 1982
45 Velvovsky I., et al. Painless Childbirth from Psychoprophylaxis, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow 1960
46 Wood P., Foureur M. A clean front passage: dirt, douches and disinfectants at St Helens Hospital, Wellington, New Zealand, 1907-1922 in Kirkham M. ed. Exploring the Dirty Side of Women’s Health, Routledge, London 2007
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53 www.freegereb.org
54 Communique of the Ministry of Justice, Budapest, Hungary, 12 November 2010
55 Kerry D., International Spokesperson, Freebirth Support Group, www.freegereb.org
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72 ibid p91
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74 ibid p115
75 Rothman S. cited in Wertz R.W. Lying-In: A History of Childbirth in America The Free Press, New York 1977
76 Gabbe S.G. and DeLee J.B. cited in Wertz R.W. 1977 Lying-In: A History of Childbirth in America. The Free Press, New York 1977
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78 Kitzinger S. (ed) Episiotomy: physical and emotional aspects, NCT, London, 1981
79 Tselem B. The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories www.btselem.org/english
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86 Prison Reform Trust 2004 Fact File. In Lacking Conviction, London, Prison Reform Trust.
87 Kitzinger C., Kitzinger S. Birth Trauma: talking with women and the value of conversation analysis, British Journal of Midwifery, May 2007;15:5
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89 Quoted from Wordsworth’s Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
90 Kitzinger C. Afterword: Reflections on Three Decades of Lesbian and Gay Psychology, Feminism and Psychology, 2004, 14(4) 523-530
91 ibid
92 World Health Organization, Women’s Health: Fact Sheet No. 334, updated 2013
93 The Sunday Times, 16 March 2014
94 Family Experiences of Vegetative and Minimally Conscious States, www.healthtalk.org
INDEX
Abbé Pierre 53
abortion 49, 207, 231, 247–8, 251, 330
acceleration/augmentation of labour (with drugs) 160, 162, 174, 184, 262
Active Birth Movement 77, 189, 191, 245, 294
Active Management of birth 157–63, 176, 184, 313
activism and campaigning
for asylum seekers 319–22
Birth Rights rally 189–91
campaigners-medical professionals working together 168
in Canada 233, 244
on the induction issue 162
for involvement of fathers 177–8
march for rights in childbirth 230
for midwifery 244, 250–4
Royal Free Protest 156, 189–91
SK demonstrating birth whilst on a protest march 233, 244
by SK’s daughters 39, 137, 197, 342–3
in support of Agnes Gereb 254–60
in support of Wendy Savage 230–2
by Uwe Kitzinger 338
for women in prison 324–8
adoptive mothers 220
Advanced Decisions 10–11, 342
advocacy, patient 286–8, 342
Africa
refugees and asylum seekers from 318–24
SK’s work on female genital mutilation 198–201
vegetarian pregnancy 345
Agnes, Aunt 24
A Passion for Birth Page 44