Midwife only wants to do straight-forward natural births?

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I met a trainee midwife this weekend who told me that once she's qualified she doesn't want to work in hospitals or with doctors. Instead she intends to work in birth centres as she prefers' the straightforward, natural, non-intervention births'.

Is this a common attitude in midwifery? It came across like she felt a hospital birth was less valuable than straight-forward natural births.

AIBU to think that the women in hospital who may have risk factors or complicated labours with interventions are likely to need the skills and support of a good midwife more than those women who manage to pop them out naturally with minimal complications in the birth centre.

AIBU to think that this is like me saying I only want to do the easy, straightforward quick projects at work rather than the more complicated ones that really need my skill and effort if they are going to be successful?

I'm a student midwife.

Once I have finished my training (1 year left!) I will do a preceptorship which will involve all aspects of midwifery care. I will be trained in all aspects of care and will continue with lifelong learning and maintain all my training.

I enjoy low risk midwifery care, I particularly love home birth. I probably will end up in a home birth team looking after low risk women. This does not make me lazy etc etc and also does not mean I won't be able to look after higher risk women in other birth settings or if a low risk woman became high risk during labour/birth.

If all midwives passions were in the same area then women would be in serious trouble.

Cushy number? Lazy? Easy?
My god, what planet are some of you on?

The midwife who delivered DS at home told me her very first home birth was a shoulder dystocia.

She may well not want to do the non straight forward births. But I think she meant she doesn't want to do the births where women are connected up to various drips and monitors. Not that she thinks there won't be pphs and shoulder dystocias to deal with.

Maybe as a trainee she doesn't yet have the confidence to deal with 3 different types of drips running at the same time, a dodgy CTG, a deflexed OP baby, and sky high blood pressure.

When I was a trainee or newly qualified I would have been scared of this and preferred looking after the more low risk women. As I got more experienced and consolidated my skills I started to enjoy the challenges of more complex stuff. But it's not for everyone.

there are some monumentally stupid replies on this post. Read the replies from ACTUAL MIDWIVES before spilling your stupid and embarrassing yourselves, eh?

Its no different to a doctor choosing to do general practise over emergency medicine. Or choosing to be a plumber instead of a lion tamer.

fucking hell.

Midwives who specialise in physiological births, aiming to avoid unnecessary interventions, have to be highly skilled. It's definitely not the equivalent of just taking on easy projects.

For instance, coaching a woman to birth a breech baby vaginally definitely requires skill and knowledge. Or being confident in knowing what you would do at somebody's home in the event of shoulder dystocia or post-partum haemhorrage.

Just look at the variation in intervention rates between hospitals and you can see what a difference culture makes to the birth experiences that women have. I'm absolutely not knocking the skills and knowledge of obstetricians, and I'm incredibly grateful for the medical skills that we can access in labour wards and operating theatres when needed, but neither should anyone be knocking the impressive set of skills required by midwives who specialise in enabling women to have physiological births where (as will be the case for the majority of women) it's preferable.

I'm a massive fan of the three superbly experienced midwives I know, all of whom specialise in home births. All in their 50s or 60s now. They are quite exceptional in their knowledge, their judgement and their skill. I had absolutely no idea what they did that was so special before I encountered consultant obstetricians and hospital midwives who tried to railroad me into interventions for which there was no clear evidence, and resorted to ill-informed scare stories to back up their hospital policies.

Unfortunately the result of this kind of culture is that lots of women give birth and emerge from a cascade of interventions often pretty traumatised and convinced that their baby could have died if they hadn't accepted X, Y or Z intervention.

Check out Ina May Gaskin's birth statistics if you want to see the kind of difference that skilled midwifery can make in comparison to so-called 'normal birth' practices in US hospital settings.

I think the two areas have a different feel.
I found critical care possibly the easiest job in nursing and an extended role in a clinic the most challenging. It possibly doesn't look like that to outsiders though!

I think a lot of posters are taking this woman's career preference rather personally, which may be understandable considering how defensive some women get over their birth choices. She's not saying "ugh, I wouldn't want to go near those awful women with their complicated births," she's simply saying that she would prefer to work in a setting with lower risk patients and with more autonomy. She's not going to rip off her gloves and refuse to care for a woman whose birth takes a complicated turn, she's going to treat that woman as she would any other.

Some of these comments are horribly judgmental, and even nasty. My friend is an independent midwife, specialising in homebirth, but my God, she is one hell of a woman, will fight your corner, loves women, is in awe of their strength, and can handle any emergency thrown her way. Any woman would be lucky yto have her caring for and advocating for her, and she is about as far from lazy or stupid as you can get.

It's like saying you'd rather work in a village primary than an inner city one : different challenges, different needs, but in no way does one look down on the other. Or a vet who would rather work in a rural area with lots of farming cases to attend to, over a practice in a town where they are dealing with lots of small domestic animals.

Some of the rude comments on here say far more about the ignorance of those posters than they do about the trainee midwife. She is not judging your birth preferences, she's just stating an area she'd like to specialise in.

I'm a teacher. I teach primary, not secondary. I would hate teaching secondary. My ideal age group to teach is somewhere in the 6-9 year old range (but I have taught older and younger kids too). A doctor may like working in paediatrics, or oncology, or as a GP. We all have different preferences.

Eeeee I can't wait to become a midwife. X

I think you are misunderstanding. She wants to work in a birth centre which by nature IS only uncomplicated natural births. When there are (proper) risk factors or complications, the midwife has to step aside for the consultant etc. to take over. So maybe you are just completely misunderstanding what she meant. Also birth centres are a different philosophy to a hospital so it's understandable that a midwife has a preference for working in one.

I have no issue with her stating she wants to work in a midwife led unit. I do however hate the use of the word 'natural'. It's judgemental and unnecessary.

Midwife led or doctor led, as long as you have a baby at the end of it surely that's all that matters

She's not unreasonable to want to work in a birthing centre. She is unreasonable, and unrealistic, in thinking she's only going to be dealing with low risk births.

I gave birth to DC2 in a birthing suite. The actual labour and birth were very quick and easy. My literally almost dying half an hour later after unforeseen complications set in kind of took the shine off things.

We went from having dimmed lights and just DH, the midwife and myself in the room to bright lights and 14 extra staff rushing into the room before I was whisked away for emergency life saving surgery.

Your friend is very naive if she thinks working in a birthing suite equals calm, quiet births with lots of baby cuddles afterwards. Maybe she needs to grow up before pursuing this career choice further.

Emmy, if there are any complications in the birthing suite the mother is transferred out! So the nature of her job is not going to be to deal with high risk births! I think some people are reading farrrrrr more into this than necessary. Such indignation!

Midwives are allowed to have career choices, you know. A student MW can have a passion for midwife-led births in an MLU, or for Infant Feeding, or for working in bereavement, for teaching/lecturing, for high risk hospital work, for community work and homebirth. We don;t all have to work in the same area, we're all different. We can have preferences.

Midwives working in homebirth or MLU birth are phenomenally skilled. A woman birthing in an MLU will be low risk by definition, but the MWs are trained to deal with emergencies as they arise (and boy, do they arise!).

Such a shame to see the midwife-bashing on this thread.

KarateKitten you're not going to transfer out all emergencies, not by a long chalk. You can't transfer out a shoulder dystocia, or a massive PPH for example, unless you want the mother or baby to die in transit. You deal with it in unit, using the midwifery skills that are drilled into you in training.

This thread really shows the lack of awareness of the role of the midwife. It's quite sad, no wonder it's such a threatened profession.

emmy
I think it's more about the midwifery led aspect that she's interested in. I do understand her though. Perhaos she us more interested in the physiology of birth in which case working in an area with lots of sections might not appeal.

I agree pingu
Don't they send the experienced ones out on community?

You can do community fairly early on, after Preceptorship should you wish, but IME it's rare to find an inexperienced Community MW. In my trust they're mostly older and very highly experienced. They're amazing, they're so casual about dealing with crazy emergencies at homebirths: full on Neonatal resus, women hosing litres of blood onto the the floor etc. It doesn;t seem to phase them at all.

I had second DC at home having discovered with first DC that I hated hospitals. The NHS midwives that attended had all opted for the community unit because they preferred the relaxed non-interventionist atmosphere of a 'natural' home birth (as I did), although they reassured me that if there was any sign of difficulties I would be blue lighted to the local maternity unit pronto. It's totally horses for courses. Some midwives prefer working in a hospital atmosphere with the hierarchy and support that provides. Some prefer the autonomy and one to one interaction of a home birth. Equal but different.

Just as many midwives thrive on a fast paced, high risk delivery suite as in a freestanding birth centre. Myself, I adore antenatal care but also enjoy a bit of variety. Would it somehow be preferable if the student had said she only wanted to work with doctors in hospital? Is that more acceptable to some of the posters here? It seems there is an awful lot of projection and personal offence happening on this thread.

It's possible the student didn't express herself quite right or may still have rose tinted spectacles on, especially if she is early in her training, but her career wishes are totally valid. I don't know a single midwife who enjoys every aspect of midwifery equally!

Also- delivering in an MLU or at home does not mean all women manage to "pop their babies out easily" and that the midwife does sweet FA. It's incredibly hard work for women and the midwife needs to be extremely skilled to support physiology and anticipate and react to emergencies.

Some ridiculous comments, in a teacher, I love working with post 16 special needs, I've got friends who love mainstream reception, we are different! I have had two uncomplicated water births with two midwives who desperately wanted to push me into more checks and pain medication, I would have loved a midwife with a focus on natural med free births. I have other friends who wanted c sections. People are not all the same!