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Dr. Sarah Buckley on the 20th Anniversary of the UN’s Year of the Family and the Global Prenatal Initiative

By Sarah Buckley, M.D.

 

About the Video

Dr-Sarah-BuckleyDr. Sarah Buckley talks about the Global Prenatal Initiative as a part of the 20th anniversary of the UN’s Year of the Family in 2014.  Dr. Buckley is the author of the bestselling book Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering: A Doctor’s Guide to Natural Childbirth and Gentle Early Parenting Choices, published by Celestial Arts (US, 2009).

 

About the Global Prenatal Initiative and Nine Months to Save the World

Global Prenatal InitiativeThe successful OMAEP panel event during the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development Rio+20 has blossomed into The Global Prenatal Initiative (GPI). The GPI is gathering support from both civil society and governments and preparing events that will take place throughout 2014.

Major and grassroots events will take place around the globe during the 2014 United Nations 20th Anniversary of the International Year of Families (IYF). Events will focus on the major UN themes for this year:

– Confronting family poverty

– Ensuring work-family balance

– Advancing social integration

– Inter-generational solidarity

Read more about the Global Prenatal Initiative here.

 

About the UN’s 2014 20th Anniversary of the Year of the Family

UN-Logo-2The twentieth anniversary of the International Year of the Family (IYF)offers an opportunity to refocus on the role of families in development; take stock of recent trends in family policy development; share good practices in family policy making; review challenges faced by families worldwide and recommend solutions.

Owing to rapid socio-economic and demographic transformations, families find it more and more difficult to fulfil their numerous responsibilities. Many struggle to overcome poverty and adequately provide for the younger and older family members. It is also more and more difficult for them to reconcile work and family responsibilities and maintain the intergenerational bonds that sustained them in the past.
In response to these trends, the preparations for the twentieth anniversary of the IYF will focus on exploring family-oriented policies and strategies aiming mainly at confronting family poverty; ensuring work-family balance and advancing social integration and intergenerational solidarity. The preparatory process is to accelerate progress in family policy development; demonstrate its relevance for overall development efforts and draw attention to the role of different stakeholders in achieving these goals.
The preparations for the twentieth anniversary will include:
  • International and regional expert group meetings gathering family experts and practitioners to explore recent family trends; analyse family-oriented policies and programmes and review good practices in family policy making.
  • Research activities, including background papers on family poverty, work family balance and intergenerational solidarity.
  •  Exchange of good practices in family policy.
  • Observances of the International Days of Families focusing on the themes for the twentieth anniversary.
  • Side events at the Commission for Social Development.
  • Government, civil society, academic and private sector initiatives at the national level.
  • Findings and recommendations from these activities are to guide future action in effective family policy design, monitoring and implementation.
Governments, United Nations agencies and bodies, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, research and academic institutions and the private sector are encouraged to play a supportive role in promoting the objectives of the twentieth anniversary for the benefit of families worldwide.
For more information contact Focal Point on the Family atkaczmarska@un.org.
Sarah Buckley, M.D.

Sarah J Buckley is a trained GP/family physician with qualifications in GP-obstetrics and family planning. She is the mother of four home-born children, and currently combines full-time motherhood with her work as a writer on pregnancy, birth, and parenting,
Dr Buckley’s work critiques current practices in pregnancy, birth, and parenting from the widest possible perspectives, including scientific, anthropological, cross-cultural, psychological, and personal. She encourages us to be fully informed in our decision-making; to listen to our hearts and our intuition; and to claim our rightful role as the real experts in our bodies and our children.
Her bestselling book Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering: A Doctor’s Guide to Natural Childbirth and Gentle Early Parenting Choices, published by Celestial Arts (US, 2009), builds on her acclaimed first edition, published in Australia as Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering: The Wisdom and Science of Gentle Choices in Pregnancy, Birth, and Parenting One Moon Press, Brisbane, 2005).
Dr Buckley’s writing has been published in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK, US, and other countries, including: The Age newspaper (Melbourne, Australia), Mothering magazine (US), MIDIRS Midwifery Digest (UK), Midwifery Today (US), Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health (US); The Practicing Midwife (UK); The Mother (UK), The Green Parent (UK); Juno (UK) Byron Child/Kindred magazine (Aus), Natural Parenting (Aus), Mother and Baby (Aus); Playtimes (Aus); Wellbeing (Aus/NZ), Nexus (Aus/NZ), Living Now (Aus), The Australian newspaper (Aus), Birthspirit Midwifery (NZ) and The Complete Mother (Canada). See below for a fuller list
Dr Buckley’s work has been incorporated into parenting books including
Mothering Your Nursing Toddler (Norma Jane Bumgarner, US 2000); Lotus Birth by Shivam Rachana, (Australia, 2000); Loving Mama (edited by Tiffany Pallisi, US 2004); What Babies and Children Really Need (Sally Goddard Blyth, UK, 2008) and Heart to Heart Parenting (Robin Grille, Australia 2008). ). She has also written the forewords for The Wild Feminine (Tami Lynn Kent, US 2008) and the bestselling Pregnancy and Childbirth Secrets (Gail Dahl, Canada 2007)
She has contributed to professional texts including Midwifery Best Practice Volumes 4 and 5 (Edited by Sara Wickham, UK 2004 and 2009); Sharing Midwifery Knowledge: Tricks of the Trade Volume 4 (Midwifery Today, US 2004); and Essential Midwifery Practice: Intrapartum Care (Edited by Denis Walsh and Soo Downe, UK, 2010).
Her work has been translated into Italian, French, Spanish, German, Hebrew, Polish, Hungarian and Estonian.
Visit Dr. Buckley online. 

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