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Thursday 2 May 2013

Day 2: Education

Educate us on something you know alot about or are good at. Take any approach you'd like (serious and educational or funny and sarcastic)
I would like to think that I am good at my job as a midwife.  As a profession we have many duties and responsibilies and many of the perceptions people have are quite untrue so I will dispel a few 'myths'


source

Midwives play with babies all day and drink tea
this one always makes me laugh and is usually uttered by men.  As an NHS midwife you are working within a stretched healthcare system and even more so in London.  Sadly the rising birthrate means there is a drastic shortage and therefore those of us working in the system don't go far enough! 
Midwives only deliver babies  
Another frustrating misconception.  In the UK Midwives are the lead professional for normal healthy women.  Basically this means during pregnancy we care for women at their antenatal appointments and education classes, during birth we are always present even for doctor lead deliveries such as a caesarean and postnatally we care for women and babies for up to 30 days.  I myself deal with a wide variety of issues for women antenatally, from health issues such as diabetes, cardiac issues, social issues, emotional issues and have to be very creative.
Midwife's are inferior to doctors 
We work alongside doctors, not under them.  We are autonomous practitioners in our own right, experts in normality.  We refer where there is a medical need to our colleagues, and most doctors respect midwives highly.  We are also trained in all obstetric emergencies, and are usually frontline during a crisis.  I am trained to be able to provide basic life support to adults and babies, I am trained to deal with haemorrhage's, birth difficulties and administer life saving drugs, we have a vast knowledge of anatomy so we are quite useful in a pickle :)
Midwives are all crazy hippies
Yeah I can't really argue with that one, deep down I have a profound love of my profession and I feel honoured to care for women during such an amazing time of their life and hope I never lose that love.

I hope this has been amusing, I say all of this with a pinch of salt (maybe!) I think above all I just like to treat people with kindness and honesty.

4 comments :

  1. I honestly did not know much about midwives! Which is good info to at least learn about since I am pregnant :)

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  2. Hahah not to emphasize on your second point, but my sister's midwife had a call from her daughter's school one day. Apparently her 5 year old daughter had gotten in trouble for "playing midwife" on the playground. To the point of telling her friend to take her pants down to deliver the baby. :)

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  3. Hi Carly, I'm sure most midwives do a fab job. I bet it's really hard when things get difficult.
    My sister is pregnant at the moment and could do with a good one if you can nip up to Cambridgeshire?

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