Reimagining the Irish Maternity Service
‘You Are The Village’ is the title of my final project for the MA ‘Design for Change’ in IADT. In this creative strategy report, I put forth alternative epistemologies for the design of maternity care services in Ireland. I explored various ways to tackle this topic using a systems thinking approach. While there were many areas to choose from, I focussed my attention in particular on the low breastfeeding rates within Ireland.
“My mission is to create social and political change that will support the mothers of Ireland in the transition from predominantly formula feeding to breastfeeding practice”
Project Background
For our final project in the masters programme, we were challenged to find a complex ‘wicked’ problem within an area of interest to apply the theoretical frameworks and tools we had obtained throughout the degree. In addition, we were asked to build upon the knowledge by creating our own tools and strategies which would be tested to see how well they work to invoke lasting and impactful systemic change.
Research Activities
A lot of research has been done on the topic of breastfeeding rates in Ireland. With my thesis, I wanted to bring something new to the research design that would provide a different perspective on the subject. I focussed on my users (mothers) and sought to find the best modes of communication for them. I hypothesised that in all of the scientific research that had been done thus far, there was a human element that was missing which I wanted to bring back to the research to enliven it in the hopes of building empathy for this group of people in need of support.
An Empathy Timeline
When I began mapping the history of women in Ireland in relation to motherhood, I had a shift in perspective around my own personal lineage. Suddenly I pictured my mother among the other women growing up in Ireland during the 60s and 70s at a pivotal moment in history. I created the below timeline and included the four generations of women in my life and began to see the huge variation in experience lived by all of us. The political and social climate of the last 100 years in Ireland has undergone massive change, and I put forth the timeline as a tool within my thesis to illustrate this as well as to build empathy among key influential figures.
Key Insights
The process of designing tools and strategies provided me with an understanding of my own bias and challenged me to put the users’ needs first. While interviews allowed me to compare and contrast answers among stakeholders, and highlight gaps, other traditional research methods were not as fruitful as the creative strategies I employed.
It was apparent from the beginning of the study that breastfeeding was a divisive topic and would need to be handled with sensitivity. I therefore spent time learning about the best facilitation tools to deal with sensitive topics in order to make participants of the workshops feel comfortable to share their experiences.
Creative Design Strategy
After spending 12 months gathering data and insights on the topic of breastfeeding in Ireland, I began the process of designing the final thesis, the creative design strategy.
The learning objectives of the MA had been achieved at this point and it was now time to put all of the elements together and generate some plausible next steps.
The workshops had opened my eyes to the infinite directions this research could go, so I proposed a number of strategies as prompts for anyone who may be interested in creating change in the area to start from.
My contribution was to pull on indigenous wisdom and Irish folklore to design a deck of cards that could be given to new mothers as a gift, be used for training midwives or as a workshop tool to prompt discussions in schools for example.
