The judges of the Heather Trickey Essay Prize are delighted to announce the results of our 2022 award. Our joint winners are The Pelvic Partnership and Angeline O’Connor, writing on the subject of pelvic girdle pain in pregnancy.
The prize seeks to build on the work of Dr Trickey, who died in July 2021 and who was involved in designing the award. It encourages work that aims to find common ground and practical responses in sometimes difficult areas of women’s reproductive health and rights. We were also looking for essays that spoke to a underexplored or contested area, sought to surface women’s voices and experiences, and suggested fresh solutions.
We chose these two essays, as we felt they absolutely articulated these key themes.
Pregnancy-related pelvic girdle pain is a very common and recognised condition, yet its debilitating impact on women during and after pregnancy seems to remain completely unappreciated. We felt this was an area of significant unmet need which deserves reappraisal, with a particular focus on developing an evidence base on what works to underpin more reponsive and consistent services for women.
We will support The Pelvic Partnership and Angeline to take their ideas forward.
Alongside these essays, we are also publishing two highly commended submissions.
Emillie Belmore’s essay explores the impact of sexual violence on female reproductive health, specifically looking to overcome gaps in previous research which has tended to focus only on psychological effects.
Katherine Butcher brings a unique perspective to her discussion of law reform in the complex and contested area of fetal death due to third party recklessness.
We know Heather would have been thrilled at the diversity of issues covered this year, and all of the authors’ demonstrable commitment to improving experiences and outcomes for women.
We are hugely grateful to everyone who took part and look forward to opening the award again next year.
ENDS
For further information, please contact Katherine O’Brien, BPAS Associate Director of Campaigns and Communications, on katherine.o’brien@bpas.org or 07881 265276.
About BPAS
The British Pregnancy Advisory Service, BPAS, is a charity that sees over 100,000 women a year for reproductive healthcare services including pregnancy counselling, abortion care, miscarriage management and contraception at clinics across Great Britain.
BPAS exists to further women’s reproductive choices. We believe all women should have the right to make their own decisions in and around pregnancy, from the contraception they use to avoid pregnancy right the way through to how they decide to feed their newborn baby, with access to evidence-based information to underpin their choices and high-quality services and support to exercise them.
BPAS also runs the Centre for Reproductive Research and Communication, CRRC. Through rigorous multidisciplinary research and impactful communication, the CRRC aims to inform policy, practice, and public discourse. You can find out more here.