Been pregnant or given birth abroad?

[Fraktal]

Please would you help me?

I have to teach English to student midwives this semester. TOEIC prep I'm fine on but they also need to get a basic grounding in how to use it professionally so I would like to enlist your help!

What do you think you need your midwife to be able to say at a minimum and in an ideal world?
What do you think are the major differences that midwives in France need to be aware of between care there and anglophone countries? Midwives here may deal with SA, Aus, American or British women - all pretty plausible.

If you were travelling why do you think you'd be likely to go to the hospital and encounter a MW? That might help me refine the situational vocab needed! At the moment I can't see the wood for th trees.

Sorry, where I delivered DD midwives did not exist. Possibly outside of the cities they did but they would have had their knowledge handed down over millenia.

I've had 2 babies in Germany - it's a difficult question to answer, but I think key midwife specific vocab is quite personal and biological - they need to be able to ask about bleeding and pain and stitches and breast feeding, they need to tell women to watch out for raised temperature and beast pain/ engorgement - most of the baby specific stuff apart from feeding questions they can see and check by weighing. I guess terms like "cord stump/ umbilical cord", nappy (and the American version diaper), fontanelle/ soft spot, are important, as well as terms for poo and wee or at least wet/ dirty... There is midwife-new mum specific vocab but it is all a bit yucky really!

I can help from the other side of the equation I think. I am a British Midwife and have worked in the Middle East. Obviously the local women spoke Arabic but some had a little english and in fact the hospital functioned in english ie all the paperwork, computers, policies, communication between professionals was in english. We did have translators but in labour that wasn't always practical and a lot of our care was carried out in sign language and was very effective. It helped that the women were very efficient at giving birth.
To answer your question though, I think your students need to know:
Do you have pain? Show me where? All the time or comes and goes? How often?
Have your waters broken? Clear, green, blood?
Can you feel baby moving?
Do you feel OK in general?
What can I do to help? Can I feel baby and listen to him/her?

I will come back after dinner and see if that helps or if you want more suggestions.

They need to speak confidently.
I had a senior midwife, Sister Chege, who was fantastic but there was a younger, possibly trainee, midwife who annoyed me. Part of it was I was in labour and so not in the most receptive frame of mind but from what I can remember I didn't understand her and she didn't understand me. I didn't want her anywhere near me but Sister Chege asked me if it was OK for her just to assist and I was happy with that.
I will try and remember what my other problems were.

thatis yucky is right. Half of me isn't really looking forward to standing up and teaching this but the other half is quite excited and I know it's fling to be worthwhile.

trafficwarden that is wonderful. I would really appreciate any more help that you could give me

I'll remember the confidence tip too marco

Make sure they understand

1. "Get me a fucking epidural!!!!!!!!!!!!!" .
2. No. I do not have time to sign the 55 forms before you admit me. The baby's head is in my knickers

Seriously though, I think the important thing is to be really confident with the common terms for what is happening because when you're in labour you don't have the patience or energy to translate small errors/differences, so saying "tightenings" or "crampings" instead of "Contractions" confuses the patient more than if they weren't in labour and could think straight. So be able to say

"How far apart are your contractions?"
"Have your waters broken?
"You are X centimetres dilated?"
"Can I examine your cervix to see how dilated you are?
" Are you feeling the urgency/need to push/bear down
Do you want some gas and air?

Sorry, life took over and I didn't get back!

One of the things I used to see frequently was the disdain some midwives from other cultures had for birth plans. They are so normal for british women and although I have no experience working in France, I understand it can be rather patriarchal with a "doctor knows best" type of care. If a woman comes in with a birth plan your students need to know how important it is for the woman to have it discussed and worked with, not be told "you can't do that here". They need to be able to explain and discuss options not "tell" women what will happen. Informed consent is VERY IMPORTANT!

Is there a possibility of you/they creating information leaflets for subjects like pain relief, position in labour, suggestions for birth partners, breast feeding with pictures, perineal care/lochia? These kinds of subjects in clearly translated english are useful and can be referred to with the woman and given to them to keep for reference.

Oh, things like when baby will see a Paediatrician, vaccinations, discharge procedures and paperwork involved are all useful things to know and be able to communicate. Also what is hospital policy and what is just habit or cultural needs to be clear.

I may be overthinking this as far as your involvement goes - although you could suggest they take on board these issues and earn themselves brownie points with tutors! Let me know if I can answer anything else.

Well you've just given me one assignment with the leaflets I will be addressing the cultural differences (birth plans key there) with relevant vocab but only tangentially.

This is all useful for whoever does it after me though, as I'm being drafted in as an emergency measure because they thought it was a great idea and failed to really execute it!

Do you mind if I PM you with questions?

I've had two babies in Germany, but spoke good enough German to manage it all linguistically without recourse to English. However I was also an English TEFL teacher in a previous existence and have taught Medical English before.

Your midwives will have to distinguish between the language they actively use to the women in labour - Real life has given some good examples, and the passive language they will need to understand from the women themselves, which of course might be tricky if someone is in the middle of a contraction. Would you have access to DVD/projector equipment in the class - if there are only a few participants a laptop would do the job. You could prepare short comprehension sessions of One Born Every Minute to get them used to regional accents. You could get them to describe what has just happened in a sequence, for instance, to practice tenses 'Sarah is now 8 cm dilated, Jackie has just given birth, Milly needs an injection to deliver the afterbirth' etc. You could either pre-teach the relevant vocab or put it up on the board as it is mentioned. And then as a follow-up they could act out those same scenes.

You can access OBEM from abroad by getting hold of a UK IP address.

No problem with PM Fraktal. Never had one here!

Are you teaching them English to cope with English speakers during ante and post natal care or to cope during labour?

If it is to cope during labour they have to know women will not be rational and they need to be clear. My memories of giving birth are hazy, but I think the student midwife I got annoyed with had basic English but not enough for me to understand her. I think they also need to have the confidence to accept, that if the woman doesn't understand them, they shouldn't take it personally but find someone who has more English.

Useful vocabulary for post natal care and things to do with baby care, for example

• nappy, stools, urine
• is the baby suckling?
• I am going to do a blood test or give you an injection
• give these vitamin drops daily / once a week etc

I remember the pediatrician asking me to describe my baby's stools and having a mental blank how to describe them in French. Fortunately DS came to my rescue and did a poo!

Is this for care throughout pregnancy or emergency care for holidays? if you are an english speaker only and your midwife is french, a doula or friend or your partner will probably translate if its for the whole prgncy? otherwise is there a emergency translator in the hospital? what area of france is it? is there a sudden influx of expats? and is it for British mother tongue or English as a second language?

The leaflets sounds great, and birth plan advice is excellent- also i found they like to put babies in nurseries and not breastfeed, so ladies may find it all very stressful, depending on your expectations.
Gosh, you have a task!

The university require a minimum ability in English but don't seem to know why I've asked these kind of questions and the answer is they don't know. Explaining that I can teach the words (fairly easily) but that they depend in context doesn't seem to have gotten me anywhere!

The likelihood is that it would be emergency care here but we recognise that MWs may end up working elsewhere. Also at the point of initial contact it's possible that the women won't speak French well then. No doula to translate - categorically not allowed. Also from personal experience, even if you speak fluent French labour can rob you of a lot of that so it's imperative that they're at least able to understand!

At least 50% is cultural though and I can't really teach that....

Oh and no translator (I asked that for me!), could be dealing with EMT or English as a shared language, which ironically is probably easier to teach.

Frak, having given birth to DD2 last week, I lapsed into English on a couple of occasions - firstly when the anaesthetist gave me the epi I started started shaking and started sobbing, not sure why, he started to asking me rapid-fire questions. Neither of us were native French speakers so something got lost in translation and I said
I can't understand a fucking word you are saying

Which may have come across as quite rude, but it's not just the patients who may hit a language barrier - the majority of consultants in my hospital seem to be foreign, so midwives attending labour might need to step up to help out where necessary.

DD got stuck, they were a bit slow to explain to me what was going on and I was really confused, exhausted and lost and started panicking. I really needed them to tell me what was going on in clear, concise language. I felt much calmer once I knew - but I guess that falls into the category of cultural differences. I had to get DH to speak for me, even though I normally would have had the vocab myself (and then DH nearly passed out and had to leave the room and lie on the floor outside for ten minutes )

When DD was born after a mildly traumatic, long labour (see epi above,slowed things right down) I sobbed uncontrollably for about ten minutes thanking everyone for getting her out safely in English. I lost all my French.

Sorry none of that may help, but it's all fresh in my mind...

It helps flying and I'm so sorry you had a tough time Hope all is well now and congratulations!

I told the MW who kept telling me to push 'I am fucking pushing' so it's not just you

Oh thank you, I don't feel traumatised as such, just massively, massively relieved that she is here safely.