A Geordie in a Scots World

What a lovely finish to my time with the Storks. I arrived at Chris' early to help with admin stuff, which was really useful to see how they work with the NHS and how they keep track of everything! Chris explained Sharyn is the organisation of the group and has made A4 admin sheets for each woman, with information like if they've borrowed books (which they do frequently), has consent been given for the NHS and their GP to be informed of the change in care etc etc. Ironically, this time really helped me understand a lot of what had been talked about the team meetings and even with the women.  After this, we went to a postnatal visit of the woman who invited me to her birth. She's doing great and her little baby is flourishing, already surpassed birth weight! Quite the little chunk. We chatted mostly about family life, how she adapting and feeling, sleeping and the usual, and was good to catch up with her partner there for this visit too. The visit was over an hour, an

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