Choice is for life, not just for pregnancy.

Tous les Trucs (Everything you need to know) 

This was the name of a book I bought myself in France (obviously). I was 18, and apart from thinking I was really clever for buying a book in French, it was also a great buy. (For those of you who are interested, it lists everything you might ever want to cook, how to choose it, and how to cook it to perfection (french-style)- An ideal purchase for an au pair confronted with a fridge containing a rabbit to cook for tea. I put it down to experience...) I was reminded of that book recently (I still use it occasionally - but no rabbits involved).

Being a midwife, I am used to quoting or being asked for information about all things childbirth. I can see and feel, when I talk to women and families who are expecting a baby or babies, that it is a huge relief to them, to have access to the wide range of information that they need to help them feel in control and to help them navigate their way (and to have information that they didn’t even know they needed!).


 ‘Tous les trucs’

To take it away from pregnancy a moment... Being a little older, and hopefully a little bit wiser...having experienced a little more life now, with its ups and downs, I see that there are other occasions where a person may need a ‘midwife’ of sorts... a ‘tous les trucs’ book where they can look up what it is they need to know, including all the things that they didn’t even know how to begin to ask about. There have been times of what you might call 'crisis' where I have had no idea what questions to ask! The trouble with these times is that, unlike a pregnancy, where you’ve got 9 months to ask questions and plan, even if you didn’t plan it, there is not necessarily any time! There are hundreds of books and even more online, as well as health professionals and other experts– all of whom have their own, often invaluable things to say. Where do you start?

When a person emerges from a challenging period in their life, some people said 'hey! you should write a book!'. There are LOADS of them. And everyone’s got their own story, their own agenda, their own history. What has struck me, is that all these things that I was reading have lots and lots in common about ‘choices’ and about how to live a healthier, 'better' life. It has also struck me that even when, for example someone close to us is diagnosed with something scary, life-threatening, we are shocked, we eat more greens for a while, try and de-stress a bit, before we slip back into our old habits. It has struck me mostly just how DIFFICULT it is to live what might be described as a healthy balanced life in the world we live in. (Traffic, tescos, pace of life, the power of advertising and also of drug companies, stresses, responsibilities...) We KNOW (governments know, doctors know, journalists know...) that the more modern and industrialised a country gets, the more its population suffers all sorts of dis-ease and illness. We KNOW this is to do at least in part, with how many toxins, chemicals, poisons, radiation, we eat, breathe, tolerate, rub into our skin. Yet because of the way our modern world works, we KEEP DOING IT!!! I am not going to try and tell anyone what they should be doing/eating/breathing/bathing in (well, I might try and tell a few people), but what I will say, as a midwife, as a mum, as a human on this precious earth, you do have CHOICES.  There is much in our world that we believe we don’t have a choice about, or that we believe is fine, because ‘everyone else does it’. ‘Everyone else eats that kind of food’ ‘Everyone wears that kind of make-up’,‘You HAVE to have your baby in a hospital’, ‘You HAVE to go to school’, ‘The economy MUST keep growing’ (despite the fact the earth is still the same size!). Do most breastfeeding mums sleep with their babies? Do I have to agree to have my labour induced? What are the consequences if I choose not to have antibiotics? What is the alternative to having that electronic fetal heart monitor attached to me? Question. Do the right thing. The right thing for you might not be the same as the right thing for the next person. That’s fine. You have choice.

It's our job as midwives to support you in the choices that you feel are right for you.


For those of you who have managed to read through my small explosion of words, thank you and well done - And I apologise if you were looking for something more pregnancy related today. It will come. Keep watching. It is relevant, of course. We are always banging on about choice in pregnancy and birth, and you will certainly keep hearing about it from me. But for today, I wanted to stretch the boundaries a  bit, and to twitter about how it's applicable in the rest of our existence as well. Is this what is called living mindfully? ...Maybe I'll have to stretch the boundaries of midwifery a bit more...some further reading for you in the meantime...

www.storyofstuff.com/
www.aims.org.uk/
www.theeconomicsofhappiness.org
www.canceractive.com/
www.safecosmetics.org

A new phase...

Ok, so here goes... Please be kind! - Although I started this blog a couple of years ago, obviously then was not the time. Now, I am very excited to be in a new phase of my own internet wizardry and have sent multiple pages out into the World Wide Web!

As you will see, I hope, I am starting a programme of antenatal fun, and a breastfeeding circle which I hope will give some good extra support to Mums of babies small and not-so-small. I'm really pleased to be able to hold the circle within a rural community, and I hope it will help also bring families and community together. It's also an easy space for crawlers and those who are running around, so the Mums can hopefully sit!

I'm excited about the workshops, and I hope you will be able to pass on and share this blog-link so that we can get some lovely groups of parents together to learn, grow, and develop friendships on their amazing journeys. Watch this space for the up-coming sessions in which we are hoping to incorporate a gong bath and some fantastic use of sound to help create those wonderful vibrations that will heal, nurture and invigorate you!

In the meantime, I will endeavour to stimulate you with interesting blog posts, and look forward to your comments and visits!
Thank you for being here!

Who Cares?

When we are pregnant, or soon to become a parent and we hear words such as care, choice, responsibility, what do they mean?

Often, I think, the words bring up images of those who are responsible for our care. Health workers of various types – health care assistants, doctors, midwives – Maybe a uniform, and we are not quite sure who is who. But they direct us in the various choices we are said to have.

The ideas I’d like to throw into the mix here are about caring for ourselves. Taking responsibility. Making those choices real.

Two recent events have come to mind. The first is something I was reading about pre-term birth which explored the issue of maternal stress.  It led me to thinking about midwives and others who maybe have an extra weight on their shoulders- managing stress- as well as workplace issues and how good we might or might not be about looking after ourselves.

The second was a film preview I organised of 'Freedom for Birth' ( www.oneworldbirth.com ) recently where the subsequent discussion highlighted the fact that health practitioners talked about offering choice, a member of parliament felt that the democratic process and Government were playing their part by streaming funding according to need as demonstrated by the service, and women talked about how they felt. (Yes, a very interesting discussion!)... The less politically correct way to say it is that the consultant midwife did an excellent political job of explaining how good the local service is at offering choice, the politician did an utterly lousy job of showing any willingness to understand or to represent Joe Public (in this case mainly Jolene Public) and quite frankly made several enemies, and the women voiced clearly and articulately how they felt denied choice, coerced and bullied.

The effect of these two things on me was to move me from the question of choice to the words ‘care’ and ‘responsibility’ – and to impress upon you, no matter your profession, status, stage of pregnancy or parenthood... or life, that as a human being on this amazing planet, you need to care.

Choice is about responsibility. It means finding out how to eat well, how to balance you work and life, figuring out what affects you emotionally and physically - or how to start to find out what might effect your decision making processes (have a look at things like Michel Odent's primal health http://www.birthworks.org/site/primal-health-research.html, or www.birthintobeing.com) how to be aware of your changing self and family, growing baby, to question and to ask.  (And if you need to, to seek out www.aims.org , the consultant midwife or head of midwifery, an independent midwife and your MP!).

This struck me in the context of thinking about us, as midwives, as women, who in our busy lives are grabbing unhealthy snacks and stressing, and pregnant, accessing the system to offer us ‘choice’ and ‘care’. Surely we all know that there is a more efficacious way to look after ourselves and our babies? A place where we stop to think.. What do I need?...What would benefit me and my family most?...Why do I want to see my midwife today?.. What do I want to know about? ..What have I noticed, or been thinking about?  Start from the point, not of what service is offered, but of yourself, and your body, yours and your baby’s (babies’). Much of healthcare in pregnancy is about supporting you in what is a normal (life-changing) stage, and should be about avoiding interference. Let’s shift the balance of power and care for ourselves. The politics - those who are ultimately in charge of how and where the money is directed, and what pressures are on medics, insurance companies and lawyers- are only going to be affected, in the end, if we take charge of ourselves. I am not saying do not access health care, but I am saying to inform yourself and to access it on your own terms.

Home birth support group

Meeting with some lovely and dynamic people at the Calderdale home birth support group this morning has reminded me of my new promise to myself to blog! Those groups are always interesting, and it is always a pleasure to meet new people and to form a small part of their journey into and through the amazing transition that pregnancy and birth is. It took me a while to realise that not only does each subsequent pregnancy bring us into a new realm of 'being' as a person, and as a family, but also all sorts of other experiences and challenges. I remember feeling o so wise having reached a certain stage in my life, only to get swept onto other things, which made me realise I how much more there was ! - To learning, developing, changing...
(I am reminded of 'Women who run with the wolves' http://www.clarissapinkolaestes.com/women_who_run_with_the_wolves__myths_and_stories_of_the_wild_woman_archetype_101250.htm - a book which I have never read cover to cover, but love to dip into)

Two things stood out for me at the group this morning; - one, was thinking about planning a home birth whilst being accepting of the possibility of a need for transfer to hospital.- The discussion caused me to reflect on the idea that there are so often unprocessed fears or emotions around birth, or the idea of parenthood - or any aspect of the above, and that those emotions, or mental processes which are perhaps very deeply engrained - part of our personality almost- can not only hinder us in labour (possibly a useful thing, as it gives us the time and opportunity to get them 'out there'), but can also make it feel more difficult, and indeed be more difficult as our bodies respond to what is going on in our thoughts. Sometimes what feels like a 'safe space' for one woman to birth in, does not feel the same for another (or maybe for our partners or support, who may be coping or processing their own fears or emotions) - or maybe we think we want one thing, but something deep within feels a need for something else ( an example - the woman who has made a birth plan for her husband to be the first to touch the baby, who actually finds she wants to be under a duvet or shut in the bathroom).
The other issue I have been prompted to reflect on is that of 'free birthing'... birthing without the presence of a health professional. I will write more about this later - And also will let you know when it has started about a new blog designed specifically to give women considering freebirth some of the information they need (relevant to our health service and systems of law/birth notification and registration in the UK).  It seems that with the looming difficulties that independent midwives are going to have with attending births legally that we may well find that free birth becomes more common. Please keep your ears to the ground about what is happening for us. At the moment it is not looking great - although a big positive is that if the neighbourhood Midwives scheme rolls out, many more NHS midwives may find it easier to practice in a much more autonomous way that they do now. that's got to be good for women and families! ( www.independentmidwives.org.uk )
One of the key points from this morning's discussion was that it is quite crucial for women to check in with a health professional at some point in her pregnancy - Aside from the issues around antenatal care, which obviously need a good deal of thought and informed decision-making, this is an issue for registars. When registering a birth, they have no way of confirming that the baby is actually yours, so having some recognition somewhere is definitely helpful! Ideally to have a midwife arrive very soon after the birth to file a birth notification form to the registry office - And I have to say, ideally have a midwife involved in some way all the way through - I'm presuming that if you're reading this and thinking about free-birthing you will be educating and informing yourselves appropriately...

On to more mainstream matters... or maybe not (!) - check out the lovely Julia Dawid's new website for some fun and fresh light on all that is birth and pregnancy. Singing and meditation are two of my favourite therapies these days, and this collection is definitely worth a look..http://thesingingmidwife.net/
Enjoy.

Thoughts for today

Welcome to my new blog, which I am hoping will gradually supersede my website (which is a constant source of frustration as I am not computer-adept enough to update and alter it myself, but thank you very much to Aaron at Peppermint IT for having managed it for me in the meantime!) ..

There is so much going on in midwifery and birth at the moment, not least for us as independent midwives, that I guess this blog is multi-purpose. I want to pass on information and links to those who might be looking for support and help in pregnancy, birth and postnatally; I also want to help publicise what is going on politically in the world of childbirth, and thirdly, I am adapting and forging a way to move with the times as independent midwifery in the UK is threatened with extinction in October 2013.

So, before I begin, thank you to the wonderful women and families with whom I have had the pleasure and the honour to work over the years, and I raise my glass also to those with whom I will continue to work in the future. I hope to be able to continue to be the midwife that I feel I am at my core, and to support the women and families who I know have not and will not sign up to the new world order of obstetric nursing for all.