can I ask you lovely pregnant ladies a question?

[ditavonteesed]

what do you want in a midwife? what qualitites does a midwife have to have to make your pregnancy the best it can be? How important is continutity of care? do you feel your midwife gives you enough time, support and information to help you make the right choices regarding preganancy and birth?
So as not to hide information, I am hoping to be a midwife and need to develop an insight into the role of a modern midwife for my uni application and I thought who better to ask than you lovely ladies.
TIA

Though not currently pregnant, I have 4 children so answering from a perspective of having had both horrid and lovely midwives.

I wanted a midwife who respected me and treated me as a thinking, feeling human being. Or who can at least act like it without being patronising or rude to myself or my family. Being supportive, understanding, and able to take things slowly and help a woman feel as in control as she can be even when things are out of control.

I'm not particularly bothered by continuity of care - I had one midwife throughout most of two pregnancies and at the end of the second still proved to not know a flying fig about me. As long as all recommendations and actions are clearly written down so can be easily discussed between providers, I'm happy.

No, I don't think there is enough support or information to help people make decisions. Things tend to be answered either in fluffy language or scare stories (still quite pissed off at scare stories being told to my kids to get them to convince me to do something...and she tried calling it 'being supportive'). No statistics or studies or anything firm to base any choices on -- my last midwife wanted me to base where I give birth based on how lovely the MLU rooms looked on the video (seriously, she seemed to think the only reason I homebirthed 2 of my kids was for the "lovely environment", even after explaining repeatedly my fears of medical people due to previous abuse and how I gave birth to DD2 in my home office which is not lovely in the slightest).

the answer to your question is, no ! they dont give enough time or support really , but thats not there fault , lack of staff , and not enough time in the appointments system !

iv had the same commuintiy midwife since my first baby 11 years ago ( now on baby number 7 .
and she is great never makes me feel rushed or that im any trouble , now the midwifes in antenatal clincs had routine hospital appointments are rude and very unhelpfull that iv found anyway !

all any women wants is a shoulder to lean on and a ear to listen to them !

good luck with your training .

I would like a midwife who:

• will treat me as a human being with dignity
• someone with an air of unflappable capability
• someone who won't put up with any of my shit, tantrums, dramatic outbursts
• someone who will understand I hate being messed about with, I'm a VERY private person and find it hard to ask/talk about intimate stuff
• someone who won't patronise me

Not had my baby yet, so couldn't say about any of the giving birth part yet, but I happen to think my community midwife is wonderful. Most of the staff at the local centre have been great as well. Always giving me plenty of time to ask questions.
I would say that I only have had two so far who have been a bit naff. One was when I had my GTT and despite me saying to her that it took a while to find a good vein when putting the strap on, she put it on and ended up stabbing me 5 times to get a little blood. Told my community midwife and she said they tend to be rushed and apologised for it.
Only thing I think could be more useful is classes or something that show you how to take care of a baby. Proper freaking out about the idea of taking home the baby and not having a clue.

Someone who doesn't patronise me...
Someone who has a sense of humour in stressful situations, and make it all feel more manageable.
The same person/people as much as possible.

One of the nicest things for me, as I am on consultant led care.. was to have my midwife apologise on behalf of the consultants for some of the stuff I had to do that was tedious. None of it is her fault... but made me feel a bit better about it all...

I often feel more comfortable with older mw's (purely my pref) they've seen a bit of life and are more likey to have had their own kids and maybe grandchildren.

My mw said to me about pregnancy hysteria 'everytime you do something imagine would a pg woman with 3 other kids be doing this? if so then your fine!'

like a down to earthness.

I find it difficult to say what iwould like, although 31 Wk pg with my first it's not like I've not seen enough!! So far I haven't seen the same midwife twice. They all contridict each other, one said not to exercise any more, the next one said I should be. I was told I couldn't have a water birth by one, then another one has given me the information to make it all possible. So;

consistency.
accurate information pertinent to me.
Someone who I respected and felt like they were on my side and respected my decisions and choices regard my childbirth experience.

I've got a great community MW at the moment (I'm on Baby #3). She's been so caring and understanding of my needs and worries after having a horrible time with the MWs when I had DS2. Eg. she's an advocate of homebirths and runs a homebirthing group but she knows it's important to me (for reasons surrounding birth of DS2 ) that I have an elective c-section this time around, rather than VBAC and she's been very supportive of that, not tried to change my mind but has talked to me about making that experience the best possible for me, my baby and DH. She's a great listener and has been able to come up with sensible, practical suggestions when i've had things I needed to ask her about. And she's always made time for me when I needed it.

This is in complete contrast to my experience with DS2 where I didn't see the same MW twice, they ignored my concerns about the growth of my baby, not referring me to a consultant even though I'd suffered from pre-eclampsia with DS1 and he'd had IUGR and been delivered early. All round, they screwed up massively through their neglectful care and I was told by my consultant we were very lucky to have a live birth after an emergency c-section at 35 wks. As it is DS2 suffered aquired brain injury at birth due to lack of oxygen and this has affected his long-term development, all of which could have been avoided if i'd been referrred to consultant care earlier.

So two completely different experiences... Sorry for the long post and good luck with your application.

Had to chip in after reading katykuns's post - the apology thing. I am having hospital rage at the minute as they have just cancelled my first ante-natal appt for second time due to half the consultants fucking off on very last minute annual leave. Had my complaint letter written when spoke to lovely midwife. She was so apologetic, even though it was nothing to do with her that I immediately fell in love with her and scrunched up complaint letter. The thing is, she made me feel like a PERSON entitled to be cross at hospital crapness, rather than yet another pain in the ass getting trundled through the system.

The best medics never lose sight of the fact they are looking at actual people. I know that can make the job harder when things go wrong and that some detachment is essential to cope but there are far too many nurses / docs who should be working in the bloody morgue rather than being let loose on those still living!

I'm 27 weeks with my first baby so not exactly overly experienced on this front, having moved I'm meeting the midwife on Weds who in theory I will see at each appointment from now on and will possibly be the one there at the birth. So here is what I am hoping she will be like. I am hoping she will be personable and approachable, I am hoping she will be friendly. I am hoping she will listen and be open minded (considering I am hoping to have a homebirth but hear quite often midwives will try to talk you out of it). I hope if she has any concerns or thinks there are things I need to know she will be quite able to explain this to me without trying to bully, intimidate or coerce. I am hoping she will respect me as an intelligent, free thinking individual and be more my advocate helping me to achieve the birth I want rather than some one who sees me as just another number to get out of the way. Continuity of care is only important to me insofar as I'm able to get a good midwife and would like to hang onto her - continuity isn't much use to me if the person I'm seeing is rubbish, in fact continuity of care would be quite awful if you've got a bad midwife.

Just reading back through what I wrote, also thinking that a good midwife will be some one who can keep her head in a time of panic - who will be able to explain to me calmly if things are going wrong why things need to be done and what will happen if they aren't. So if I am in a situation where things may be at their worst and the baby's life is at risk having the midwife there will actually help to keep me calm and rational and able to make the right decision.

thanks for your replies, lots of really helpfull stuff. :)

Hmm. I'm on DC2 so I would say I like a midwife who:

• seems capable and in control even when they're not. The ones who flap are awful.

• is honest. This time round I mentioned a home birth to my MW at the first home visit, who said that I could discuss it with my consultant, who would probably say, "Do you want to die?". I knew I was fairly high risk this time round but I was glad that she put it to me straight so that I could make alternative best-case scenarios.

• is engaged. In labour with DS1 I was strapped down for monitoring the whole time and the first MW on the delivery suite didn't talk to me except to tell me that no, the anaesthetist was still in theatre and I couldn't expect an epidural for another hour at the earliest. No help, encouragement, praise, nothing. She just sat there and made notes. The second midwife talked me through the contractions, gave DH instructions on how he could 'help' and was generally lovely. It made such a difference.

• sees me as a person, not a patient. The MW appointment I had this week was at my doctor's surgery and left me feeling pretty low. They were running over half an hour late and the MW (a new one) didn't even look up to acknowledge me when I walked in, just sat there talking to the HCA and nurse. I felt really dismissed and embarrassed.

I think it comes down to appreciating that while this is stuff she does all day, every day it's very new to me!

I phoned my GP surgery (there is always a midwife on duty) in a bit of a panic at 4 wks as I was so dizzy I literally couldn't stand. She called me back after her appointment ended and explained what was happening to my body (she checked how pregnant I was in my notes first) and said that while it was tough, it was perfectly natural. She then told me to enjoy it as the next week I'd probably be vomiting but she said it in a way that reassured me and made me laugh. She must get loads of calls like mine but she was friendly and supportive.

I'm scared and panicky. I lost a part of myself (the calm rational me) when I got that BFP and I need a calm and rational midwife team to support me through the next 7 1/2 months.

Well I've just had a booking appointment with a lovely midwife for DC2 and it was completely different to my MW experience with DC1.

Last time I felt ignored, patronised, belittled, that I was not being given all the information and that I was stupid for even considering home birth. I fact the MW would not even discuss the possibility with me. My MW also went AWAL and insisted I had to have anti-D injections in my arm which is very painful.

This time round I have been listened to, talked to as an equal, given honest information with opinion and fact made clear... and I think they were even more enthusiastic about home birth than I was!

I don't care if I see the same MW each time. The MW who delivered ds I met for the first time when I was in established labour (at home!). The quality of the care is most important.

I had one antenatal MW who was great. At the birth and subsequent hospital stay I must have seen about 20. Didn't see the same once twice therefore I had zero continuity of care and some BF issues were brushed under the carpet as was my DDs jaundice. Individually they were all fine but the experience all together was not good. I'm not sure how one person would change that though.

I have just volunteered as a service user in the whole-day selection events for midwife degrees at my local university (I was one of two people on one of the panel interviews). From my experience doing that, my advice would be:

Please please please say more in your application than "I'm a very caring person". Why do you want to do midwifery rather than, say, nursing, or counselling, or being a nursery nurse?

Don't say anything fluffy like "I want to help women and be their friend". Sound professional in what you put in your application.

Think about the other skills you bring which aren't necessarily apparent to pregnant women, but are very important in being a midwife. For example, calm under pressure, good at working in teams, interested in the biological / scientific side of it and capable of doing academic-type work on this, good at time management, able to prioritise well.

Have you thought about the academic demands of the course and how you are going demonstrate in your application that you will cope well with them?

Are you actually interested in biology? Do you know what some of the current issues are in midwifery? Might help to look at a couple of the big midwifery journals.

Remember that the role of a midwife extends far far beyond the actual birth of a baby. So many applicants I saw just focussed on births in hospitals - this is only part of it.

If you are motivated to be a midwife by having had your own children (if you have), can you analyse why exactly this is? If you had an inspirational midwife, what exactly made her inspirational?

Hope that helps!