Free Resources

Proud Foundations LGBT +Maternity Notes

Throughout our own experiences over the last twelve years and our work across Maternity & Neonatal care, we consistently see a lack of understanding for our community.

Our experiences are often not understood, there’s a lack of representation, and there is in most cases “no space for us”, no “tick box”. We are consistently ‘Othered’, having to write our lives, our trauma and our experiences in the margins between pages, because there is no space for us.

This then in turn, meant that people in our community had to often put themselves at risk, coming out at every appointment, & having to explain their identities, families pathways, and family units to professionals who sadly had not been given the training or the tools to support us. This can lead to erasure, discrimination, confusion, further trauma & impact peoples experiences and leave them feeling unsafe in a system built to support them.

We wanted to change that.

We wanted to create a tool that meant all LGBTQ+ people could navigate the maternity & neonatal system SAFELY. To not have to explain themselves at every turn, and provide in detail, the information required to ensure they recieved personalised & safe care based on their needs.

So we created the “Proud Foundations Maternity Notes”.

This is a document that you can print out and fill in to give to your Midwives and other healthcare professionals to support you. 

It will mean you don’t always have to explain, feel safer, and can concentrate on celebrating your journey, and enjoying your path to parenthood and some of those awkward questions will be answered, and confused conversations will be dispelled.

You can give copies to your Midwife, carry it with your maternity notes (if you have manual handheld notes) and any partner(s), co-parents, or birth partners you have can also have a copy.

We have purposely created two different versions. One is colourful, displays our flag, and the other is plain. We’re aware that many people feel unsafe sharing that they are from the community so visually, and for those families, they can have the plain copy.

We hope that this document will support our community to be able to access safer and personalised care and celebrate and enjoy their journeys the way they should.

Please click on the links to download, and if you have any feedback on how we could improve this please email us.