New Zealand’s Minister for Women, Julie Anne Genter, has cycled to hospital to give birth to her first child at 42 weeks.
The Green Party’s Julie Anne Genter says that she went by bicycle to be induced because “there wasn’t enough space in the car”. This, she revealed in an Instagram post on Sunday, saying “beautiful Sunday morning” ride.
This is it, wish us luck!” she wrote to her followers, adding: “My partner and I cycled because there wasn’t enough room in the car for the support crew… but it also put me in the best possible mood!” The journey using an electric bike was “mostly downhill”, the keen cyclist said, joking: “Probably should have cycled more in the last few weeks to get the labour going!”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BmoyxDVh2EU/?hl=en&taken-by=julieannegenter
In June, Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, became the second world leader to give birth in office. Both she and Genter attended the public Auckland City Hospital.
Genter, 38, also the country’s associate transport minister, is a well-known and outspoken cycling advocate.
The Minister had previously announced her pregnancy on Instagram, saying: “We’re going to have to get an additional seat for the bikes.” The minister, who will take three months maternity leave, joins a number of politicians who have had babies while in office.
According to the BBC, the first New Zealand member of parliament to give birth was in 1970, with another politician breastfeeding at work in 1983. Australia changed its rules in 2016 to allow lawmakers to breastfeed and bottle-feed while in the chamber of the House of Representatives.
To read a letter penned by Minister Julie Anne Genter in celebration of 125 years of the Suffrage movement, click here.
