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The language of midwifery is your work family, best friends and confidants.

What is the language of midwifery when our faces are masked, unable to speak softly, able to only communicate with our eyes? What is the language of midwifery with social distancing, without embracing colleagues and new parents? It is your colleague calmly unwrapping the delivery pack, folding down a resuscitaire and warming up towels. It …

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Vaginal Examinations – Making an informed choice.

Following @millihill’s recent @telegraph article on vaginal examinations and ‘Covid Coercion’ I felt compelled to make a note of my thoughts and feelings about vaginal examinations in labour; their benefits and pitfalls, human rights in childbirth and holistic midwifery skills. I was shocked and saddened when I read the article, focussing on how restricted visiting …

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Why Oxytocin Matters – Kerstin Uvnas Moberg

Just finished my first of Pinter and Martin “Why It Matters” series about one of the most valuable and important parts of pregnancy, labour, sex, birth, breastfeeding, relationships, mental health, love and life.. Oxytocin! Did you know? The oxytocin system optimises social interaction, reduces stress levels and stimulates healing and growth all through life? Exposure …

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Thank you to the midwife who taught me to bring spare knickers and socks to work.

Thank you to the midwife who promised me I would learn to like tea, that I shouldn’t – but would – survive due to a strong cup, and to all those who have made me them. To the midwife who taught me, mid nightshift, that it’s easier to butter toast with the back of a …

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The noise of the gas and air ceases and the gap is filled with music that signifies a unified relationship

What are your initial thoughts when you hear the words “pregnancy and childbirth?” What words, or phrases spring to mind? For many, their minds will immediately go to the loud, raucous noises sometimes produced during contractions. Thoughts of ‘messy’ beds, the need for ‘towels and hot water,’ emergency buzzers or call bells, screaming babies, celebrating …

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It’s now around 11pm, as my friends and family are all starting to head to bed, my night is just getting started.

It’s 1AM, I gaze down from atop my coffee table upon my best friend, curled up asleep on my sofa in the middle of my flat-warming party. Inevitably, we’re thinking we’re the next Destiny’s Child, singing at the top of our voices after too many Aperol Spritz: yet it appears she is none the wiser. …

It’s now around 11pm, as my friends and family are all starting to head to bed, my night is just getting started. Read More »

You will be the face they remember popping round the side of the curtain at 3am

I have been a qualified midwife for three years. I recently sat down with one of the students who is about to finish her training and chatted all things midwifery and many things not as we realised that she will have completed a whole degree in the time since I experienced my own exit week.I …

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We pull up our compression stockings & we are there; where we are needed.

Inspired by “How to Date A Midwife“ I deleted Tinder a few weeks ago. For the last few months it has sat, unused, on my homepage, serving only to remind me of my single lifestyle, use up what little iPhone memory I have and further cement my narcissism as I used it just to look …

We pull up our compression stockings & we are there; where we are needed. Read More »

A year ago, I decided to grab life by the birth balls

On the 14th March, 2016 I got my dream come true and began working as the newest member of a midwifery led birthing centre. In the same room as I saw my first ever baby being born some 5 years previously, I was quickly thrown into the depths of pure midwifery (or however deep a …

A year ago, I decided to grab life by the birth balls Read More »