The Gate-Keepers: A Portraiture Project
This is a portraiture project, documenting the “gatekeepers” of a growing movement regarding positive birth experiences in our country. My aim: to promote those who are enabling women to identify with their power and femininity and therefore normalize birth and the body.
These are their stories / anecdotes / opinions about what they do and how they see it…accompanied by my portraits and some general information on each sitter.
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Marianne Littlejohn has been a midwife for 34 years (actively practicing for 25 years). Marianne runs the platform Spiritual Birth which encourages women to have more empowered and profound birthing experiences. She is also the founder and director of the Mtwana Birth Centre in Muizenberg and specialises in natural births for which she is a fierce advocate.
Based in Cape Town, Marianne runs Antenatal Clinics in Rondebosch and Muizenberg, but travels to the northern suburbs for mothers who want homebirths.
“I have witnessed a lot of changes during my time as an active midwife and seen how birth has become more medicalized over the years in both the private and public sectors for different reasons.
In the public sector, the sheer numbers of women needing assistance and the decrease in the number of midwives, results in less one-on-one midwifery care for mothers.
Ideally midwifery care should be one midwife per each mother.
My approach is to educate and empower the mother to surrender to the physiological process of birth (yes, this innate knowledge is part of how we are made) and become conscious of the opportunity for growth and empowerment in the process of becoming a parent.”
• (I invite more participants to join the project, you are welcome to email me for more information).
