I am delighted to have been invited to act as Guest Editor for this special edition on complementary therapies in maternity care. Having been involved in this specialist field for 25 years, I have seen many changes in attitudes towards the use of complementary therapies and natural remedies for pregnancy and childbirth, from outright scepticism and rejection in the early 1980s, to endorsement at a strategic level in the late 2000s. Since those early days, increasing numbers of midwives are using a range of complementary therapies in their practice and, in some areas, the use of aromatherapy, reflexology and acupuncture has become almost commonplace.
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