A Geordie in a Scots World

As the title says, all the sad faces 😔😔😔 This morning was an early start to be in Yorkshire for a booking appointment with Chris.I was super excited to go as i'd seen the woman previously for a consultation, and was lovely to see the family again. It was fairly standard as bookings go, although slightly more compact as the woman is fairly far along in pregnancy so there was a lot of catching up on what she'd opted for in pregnancy and how it had been progressing. It's always really nice to be able to travel with the midwives as I get to have some fantastic conversations, the one on the return journey was particularly interesting as we discussed D-MER . A relatively misunderstood phenomenon where dysphoria is associated with the let down reflex and is a pretty horrible thing to have to deal with, with no real treatment and a hella load of misunderstanding and judgement surrounding it.  My day was cut short after this as my mum phoned to say little Hinny wasn't

What a day!  A long drive to up to Scotland last night, and a 0600 start for our IDM celebration in Paisley, then a longer drive back to Newcastle💤 I first registered and set up my stall (yes, my stall!) that one of the lecturers asked me to do, doing tinsel hair and french/dutch plaits for donations to the UWS scholarship. It was slow at first but it didn't have pick up! The morning was compromised of speakers, mostly centred around the best start 5 year plan , beginning with Dorothy Finlay the lead midwife from GG&C about being an early adopter. Dorothy had a lot to say and seemed really invested in making case loading a working model and the pilot teams have already been discussed. She talked about how this will affect women from NHS Highlands as they frequently come to GG&C for consultant care and elective caesarians. In a really forward thinking move, the adjustment to case loading will be phased in firstly through the women opting for an elective caesaria

What a long day! Today started early with a discharge appointment for a family who’d gone through some tragic circumstances in their birth, but seemed to be starting to heal. Discharge appointments are mostly for the midwives I think and like a debrief of the whole pregnancy journey. The midwives go over antenatal appointments, the birth and postnatal appointments and talk about any issues that may have arisen and if the care was how the family expected it to be. I think this appointment in particular is good for the midwives as they ask for feedback on their services and if any improvements can be made for the future. This is a really important part, and a nice way to end the care, as independent midwifery at its core is a service often with a pay cut and for the passionate! When that is the heart of the work you do, its crucial to reflect and check in that actually, the people you serve think you’re doing a good job too! After this it was the weekly meeting and I finally got

Today I got to see my first Yorkshire Storks booking appointment! It was a super early start, and as usual, a mile drive. I met Debs at her house, and we set off together for the short drive from hers. This gave me a really good opportunity to get to know Debs as we had only briefly crossed paths my first week at the team meeting, and had no other appointments with her. We chatted a lot on the drive down, about midwifery and her journey into independent midwifery after upping and leaving Germany rather abruptly! She talked a lot about her ethos, and sympathised with being a student and stuck in the middle of not being able to practice the way university teaches you, and so desperately wanting to give the absolute best care you can. The booking was 3 hours long, which i'm told is usual for a booking no matter the previous history. It was lovely to get to know the woman and her story, and hear what she hoped to get from her care and she got some of her more awkward questions o

So this week I have been in delivery suite, although I only managed a shift and a half!  My mentor was a lovely midwife of 15 years who'd worked up and down England before settling back home. Our first shift we were at 'the back', where inductions of labour are started, compromised of small bays with usually 8 women a day coming, it was 'Q' and we had 3. The women were being induced for various reasons, one was a previous caesarian. Usually prostin is used here generally up to 3 times, only once if the woman is planning a VBAC.  One really interesting thing is, they occasionally use osmotic dilators for their cervical priming. I'd never actually heard of this, the midwives refer to them as 'seaweed sticks', and the idea is a few of the sticks are inserted (depending on parity, comfort levels etc) into the cervix and the vaginal/cervical mucus and moisture is absorbed into the sticks which dilates them sort of like a sponge does. There is reportedly

So i've officially finished my shifts at the birth centre 😔 i'm gutted! I've had such a fantastic experience and learnt so much, the incredible midwives have taught me so much, i'm in awe of the women and saw true calm, physiological, undisturbed births. The birth centre is entirely different to anything i've ever experienced, and it's not till you go, you realise how birth CAN be. The births I had the privilege of being part of were some of the calmest i'd ever seen, no mad rush, no big trolleys with sterile delivery packs, and genuinely undisturbed first golden hours. No pressure for vitamin K or a weight and most stay over night in the birth centre, with partners! Around half of the rooms have pools in, and generally families are moved into the room directly opposite postnatally if they opted for a pool room for labour/birth. NONE, I repeat, NONE have beds! They have sofas with pull out beds for postnatal stays, but no 'labour' beds at all in