Developing a Picture of Us

Welcome to our online exhibition “Developing a picture of us”.

The journey of bringing a baby into this world is an extremely personal one: a life changing moment. At times, however, the path is a complicated, and mothers and babies can experience ill-health that can extend well beyond childbirth. We have seen from research that complications in pregnancy and childbirth are common in Ireland, yet these struggles and suffering are often silent.

Very little research has focused on how mothers feel about these complications, so for this project, we invited mothers-to-be who were experiencing a complication in their pregnancy, and their partners, to take photographs over a two-week period.

These photographs, along with the parents' explanations, gave us an unprecedented insight into what it is like to have complications in pregnancy.

We are proud to present these photographs, words, and hospital artefacts to give a greater insight into these experiences, so they are no longer silent and unspoken. We invite you to navigate this exhibition, taking this journey through these photos and stories and share your own experience if you feel like doing so.

We hope this exhibition will provide a space to bring these words and experiences centre stage and open conversations between patients, healthcare providers, and the community. We hope they will be empowered to make changes, and let other families experiencing complications know they are not alone.

To visit the exhibiton, click here.