What If We Stopped Risk Assessing Women - and Started Risk Assessing Maternity Services?
There is something deceptively simple about the language we use in maternity care. It is so familiar, so embedded in everyday practice, that it almost disappears from view. We describe women as “low risk” or “high risk” as though these are neutral, clinical descriptors, objective observations about safety. However, language is never neutral, and these labels do much more than describe. They shape how care unfolds, what feels possible, and how decisions are made. Over time, they begin to carry weight. Not just clinical weight, but relational weight. They enter conversations, subtly altering tone, emphasis, and expectation. They influence what is offered, how strongly it is recommended, and sometimes what is quietly withdrawn. Perhaps most significantly, they shape the experience of informed consent. Because valid and true informed consent, for all its legal clarity, is not just something that lives on paper. It lives in conversations, in relationships, in moments that are often complex,...