Supporting inclusive care
Guest blog from Laura-Rose Thorogood
Ahead of the 2024 Baby Friendly Annual Conference (Virtual), guest speaker Laura-Rose Thorogood discusses her work to influence change and create equity and equality for the LGBTQ+ community and other marginalised minority groups.
I am a married lesbian mother of four donor conceived children by IUI and IVF over twelve years. I am both a Bio and Non Biological mother and have lived experience of operative birth, failed cycles, miscarriage, secondary infertility and birth trauma. In addition to being a LGBT+, Maternity and Fertility Activist, I am a educator, writer, seasoned speaker, and campaigner.
As the founder of LGBT Mummies, we seek to educate, support and advocate for LGBTQ+ women and people and support them on the path to motherhood or parenthood whilst fighting for equity and equality for all LGBTQIA+ families. The organisation influences systemic change across maternity, primary care, and law and supports over 70,000 people worldwide through guidance, community, support groups and events.
Through Proud Foundations, the organisation’s educational arm, we lecture and train midwives and healthcare professionals, educate and consult with organisations to be inclusive, and work with the Government, NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care. Proud Foundations is regularly invited into Parliament to present recommendations and campaigns for law reform. I also hold multiple roles across NHS England, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, University College London, Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, and maternity and neonatal voices partnerships, and work with these organisations to influence change to create equity and equality for the LGBTQ+ community and other marginalised minority groups.
In my talk at the 2024 UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative Annual Conference on ‘Inclusive Care’, I will discuss the barriers, systemic erasure and discrimination that the LGBTQIA+ community face, and provide some insight into what gold standard practice looks like to ensure safe and inclusive care.
LGBT Mummies and Proud Foundations currently have multiple campaigns running which centre around equity for fertility in the workplace and funded fertility service provisions for the LGBTQIA+ community. Additionally, we have launched a recent campaign to raise awareness of the journey that non-bio mothers and parents undergo and the inequalities they face, with the aim of creating change and supporting them legally, psychologically and within the workplace.
