Midwives have been an ever presence at Glastonbury Festival since it began.
Many moons ago the local hospital provided NHS midwives to work the festival.
These days the economic and litigious climate has altered and Glastonbury Healing Fields welcomes midwives who are members of the long established charity The Association of Radical Midwives.
We travel from the North East of England, the Midlands and South West and need help to hire a van and for the fuel to get us to Glastonbury Festival and back. Last year the van cost us £350 for the week. This year Newark Self Drive Hire are giving us 20% discount for which we are massively grateful.
This is the fourth year that the Association of Radical Midwives (ARM) is taking the yurt to the Healing Fields.
The yurt is staffed for the entire festival (for us it's over a week of the festival including set up and dismantle) by four qualified midwives, we volunteer our own time for the yurt, that is a haven of peace for anyone needing pastoral midwifery support.
Last year almost 350 people spent time in the yurt which is open from midday Wednesday to Sunday afternoon.
The ARM is a charity dedicated to promoting normal birth and supporting anyone to achieve or help someone to achieve this objective. As well as midwives, our membership includes, doctors, homeopathists, pregnant women, mothers, fathers, hypnotherapists, doulas... In fact anyone who has an interest in the promotion of care for women giving birth and people creating families.