Keep off the bed? Not this time!

I follow a lot of midwifery related people on twitter, it's great, keeps you up to date with what's happening all over the world. With regard to helping women birth their babies, there is a theme running through most posts. Keep women off the bed, have good support, birth in water if you can and allay the fears. I agree with all of that, but sometimes you have to follow your instinct.
I was looking after a first time mum, whose partner was no longer on the scene. She had her sister and friend with her, both mothers themselves. One had had a pool birth at home and the other a hospital birth as was this one, the pool wasn't available due to a stupid hospital decision,( more of that another time! ) She was 36+ weeks and had gone into labour spontaneously, the baby looked a good size. She was sat out of bed ,on the birthing ball and all was going well. But she was as scared as I've seen anybody. She was approaching transition but we could all see that her body was going to shut down, every change of type of contraction just scared the whits out of her. I could see 2 different dynamics in the room. Her "pool birth" friend was calm, relaxed and did not say much. Her sister frantically rubbed her back, told her to calm down and she would be OK. How to break this situation? I asked what position she was most comfortable she was in just before she dropped off to sleep. On her side with pillows between her legs and underneath her tummy. The bed was arranged and she sank into it. We could all palpably feel the tension leave her and she stayed in that position till her lovely baby was born an hour later.
In general yes, stay off the bed, birth partners are vital, if they are the right ones. Sometimes beds are good places to birth a baby!

Active Birth

I see it is 30 years since the push for active birth began. I have been a midwife for35 years (!) a little longer the movement.
When I qualified I couldn't wait to be able to practise normal midwifery,  then vaginal breech and twins were regarded as normal. I knew I was practising "differently" when I told colleagues that the mum I was  with  did not require suturing to be told "it was nothing to be proud about"!
Michel Odent came to give a talk near me, and it was truly inspiring, along with another man called Leboyer (Birth without Violence) set me on the path for women led birthing
Then I had my first baby, looked after by friends, sat upright in a dimly lit room and I lifted my own baby out into the world, quite an event for 1980!. Ever since then I have tried to go with mothers wants and needs, I wasn't alone,  in our unit I worked with like minded people, it has always been a bit of a battle to change long held views and practises and thanks to a great team and two fab midwives we were runners up in the RCM awards for promoting normality. It is great to see that we are still training midwives who have this innate belief in women to do what we have always known they could do, birth their babies naturally
We have always needed cheerleaders to help us so, thank you to Janet Balaskas, Michel Odent, Frederick Leboyer, Andrea Robertson, and my recent discoveries made through the wonder of twitter!
I am coming towards the end of my working life, I know the profession is in good hands and women will go on being able to give birth in the way they want to!

a Wonderful Birth.

Some births just stay lodged in your memory bank, this was one of those. I was working with a student midwife, and around 1 in the morning a second time mum came in to the labour ward contracting. Her first birth had not been a good one and she was very anxious. We, along with her partner tried to allay her fears, helped her into a soothing lavender bath and encouraged her through the early stages.
The birth was getting close and our mum had retreated into herself and was concentrating hard. We were silent, words were not necessary.
As the baby began to emerge, the song playing was" Hallelujah" and the baby was born to this wonderful anthem. The dad was in tears and so were we, it was truly awesome. The mum had a smile on her face that lasted till she went home.
We got a lovely letter from her saying how she had enjoyed this birth and that her daughter was thriving.
Times like this remind me why I love this job.

Nursing problems

I trained as a nurse way back in the 1970's. I loved it all, but I could see that it wasn't quite right that students were used as cheap labour. We were employed and trained by the hospital and there was a lot of snobbery about where you trained. Teaching hospitals and especially the London ones were always considered better than the provincial ones. Surely a nurse is a nurse? I trained at my local county hospital and considered it to be excellent. I was a student union rep and was at the beginning of the quest to get nursing more academic. Oh for the sake of hindsight! Today we are so far removed from how I trained and worked it is laughable.
What I think we need is to have some of the old ways knitted in with today's academia, and that learning should come towards the end of the course. If all student nurses did a full 12-18 months entirely ward based, learning how to look after people, doing all the mundane jobs and married it up with the academia after that, not only would you get nurses who knew how to care, they  would know the why behind it all and more importantly if they didn't like the caring bit they would maybe leave before the studying bit! This may sound simplistic, but we have to get back to the basic roots of nursing and that is caring for people before anything else.

Suspicious sightings

The recent news of the police mistaking a stuffed tiger for a real one reminded me of a similar happening at work. I am jumping forward quite a few years and am now working as a midwife.

Picture this, a winters evening, poor light and a maternity wing car park. A worried dad makes his way up to the labour ward and says he has seen the skeleton of a baby in the car park. Of course we take this seriously and the labour ward sister goes out to investigate, calls security who immediately contacts the police.
They arrive and tape off the area as a crime scene and leave with one chap standing close to the body while equipment is sourced.

Another midwife arrives at work, larger than life with a down to earth no nonsense attitude. She breaks through the police cordon, cracks out laughing and picks up (to the cries of horror of a lot of folk) the plastic skeleton that once hung from a car mirror!!

When the labour ward sister retired, we presented her with a cardboard coffin (shoe box) complete with a plastic skeleton lying inside.

the police declined to comment.

Life in London part 1.

So I am, at the tender age of 16 1/2, and settling down in London. Not really very different from boarding school, apart from freedom and money.
Joe Lyons had a hostel for his junior employees, a rambling house above the shops on Clapham High Street. We had a bedroom between two of us, and shared kitchen, dining room sitting room with the rest of the house and had a house keeper who was susposed to "keep an eye on us". But I had been through all this and knew how to get around rules and regulations! Life there was fun, plenty of friends always someone to chat to and although the work was hard we didn't mind.
I started training at a shop/cafe in Fenchurch Street, up at the crack of dawn to catch the tube to have the shop up and running before the office workers started. I had a thorough training in all aspects of running a shop, take away service and a busy cafeteria, the hours were quite long and looking back not too much money but I didn't work weekends or bank holidays for two years, so got to go home a fair bit.
I loved the work and the people and after a year at Fenchurch street I moved round the corner to Leadenhall street which had a Jolyon Grill attached to it (posh for Joe Lyons, anyone remember them?) Now this place was different again and the shop was a community in itself.

Post School

So July 1969 and school behind me and home for the summer. Results arrived, not good. Dad was not impressed and didn't say a lot at the time. A couple of weeks went bye and I was enjoying the summer doing not a lot with not a thought in my head for the future until the day dad said to me, "how are you going to pay us board and lodge?". Down to earth with a bump. We lived a mile from the nearest bus stop, so I donned my shoes, caught the bus and went into town and got a job which shaped my future for the next few years.
I started work as a waitress in the local Market Hotel (still standing) . It was run by a young couple with big ideas and hopes for this place. They told me to get some catering qualifications, sent me off to London for an interview with the then Joe Lyons catering company (I always knew I had something in common with Nigella) and within a couple of months much to every ones surprise, I was living in Clapham Common embarking on a catering management course!