Midwives baked cakes to illustrate and honour birth – and they look brilliant!

The Great Midwifery Bake Off celebrates the work of midwives across the UK, and it’s got us feeling very hungry and questioning our own baking skills!

“All birth is beautiful”

Modelled on the (less vagina-focused) Great British Bake Off and launched by the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) to celebrate the recent International Day of the Midwife, the call for entries resulted in a whole bunch of surprising and awesome motherhood and birth-themed cakes.

Eventual winner Kristina Foley, a midwife from Warwick Hospital, said her “All Birth is Beautiful” cake honoured every experience of childbirth.

Kristina Foley’s winning cake (above)

“The idea behind the cake is to try and empower all women with the belief that all birth is beautiful,” she told the BBC.

“The three-tiered pink cake has the phrase ‘all birth is beautiful’ at the very top,” the BBC reports. “Around the cake is artwork relating to the different stages of delivering a baby. Kristina says she wants to ‘try and educate women on these processes and encourage them to have confidence in their bodies’ when giving birth.”

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Read more about birth:

• Instagram and Facebook update policies to allow photos of uncensored birth
• Like a doughnut? Midwife shares amazing photo of woman’s cervix
• A simple viral photo has people rethinking childbirth recovery periods

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Suite tooth

Kristina’s cake is amazing, but there are many other excellent entries too. (Also, bonus shout-out to those expectant mums who are planning a baby shower? You might not have realised that you needed a cake featuring a water birth or some burrito-ed bubs … until this very minute! #SoInspired)

Katie Carr for Frimley Park Hospital

Sharon Robinson from Bucks Healthcare (above)

Anita Clarke from West Sussex Hospital (above)

Mary Kamara from Newham University Hospital (above – AMAZING!!)

Clare Gill from Burton Hospitals BHS Foundation Trust (above)

Julia Forbes from Willow Suite Midwifery Led Unit Heartlands Hospital Birmingham (above)

Sarah Brennan from Ulster hospital, Dundonald, Northern Ireland (above)

The cakes illustrated women growing babies, sperm on the loose, the sad loss of babies, different ways women carry their babies and babies finding their way through the birth canal. To name but a few themes. It’s all very educational, eye-opening and hunger-inducing, to be frank.

Push it real good

To sum up, this competition is funny and brilliant – and a delicious way to honour the work of midwives and mothers. We’re sure it will also spark discussions about the spectrum of pregnancy and birthing experiences … possibly  in the world’s most sugar-laden and surprising way.

I mean, how often do you see anatomically correct models of womens’ bodies on cakes? Not very often. Unless you have really unusual friends.

Check out all the entries below, with thanks to the Royal College of Midwives (RCM).