Who runs the world...

Well, what a busy week it has been! The beginning of my week was spent with my wonderful partner Timothy who graduated on Tuesday with a degree in International Relations. He is most likely sick of me saying it but congratulations again Tim, I am immensely proud of you. You inspire me greatly and always make me realise that with hard work you can achieve great things.

So, I am two days late but it has been a hectic week with 3 shifts on the delivery suite, part time picture framing and the graduation but without further ado - Happy International Women’s Day everyone! On International Women’s Day I found myself wondering ‘what does this day mean to me?’. By the end of the day my question was answered - I spent this day providing one-to-one care to a woman in labour with her second child. She had her loving husband by her side and her birthing partner. For me I ended up commemorating this day by providing the absolute best care I could for this woman. Labour can be a scary process, with each shift I work I am realising that my biggest role is to turn what can feel like a scary event into a calm and wonderful experience.

This particular woman was admitted for induction of labour due to having obstetric cholestasis. She was very familiar with the induction process due to induction with her first pregnancy, as it is advisable by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) that all women with obstetric cholestasis are to be induced. This is due to the risks of stillbirth. The induction process led her to have an artificial rupture of membranes, which was enough to make her body regularly contract. As I mentioned in my previous entry about induction of labour, this process can go from 0 contractions to ⅘ contractions in ten minutes, which can be very overwhelming. So this often comes with the decision to have an epidural, to find some relief and time to rest in labour. The woman I was looking after made this decision and it was the best thing for her, as it gave her and her partner (who had also been up for a couple of nights) the opportunity to rest and re-group.

Myself and my mentor provided one-to-one care for this woman all day (from 7:30 am - 20:00 pm), which as NICE guidelines state; once a woman is in labour every midwife is to provide one-to-one care. For this woman though she got two for the price of one (student midwife and registered midwife) and I felt by the end of the day this woman really appreciated having two health care professionals present. I feel we gave her the best care possible, by answering all hers and her partners questions in great depth. We offered informed choice with every procedure necessary and we facilitated her every need. We had time to sit and listen to their birth plan and listen to their expectations of what care they would like once their baby was born. Although this should be how care is always provided this is not always possible, with pressure on the ward or her labour could have been very different, if she had a quick birth she may not of had time to have this discussion with us.

I did not deliver this woman’s baby, she progressed amazingly all day and reached the expected targets as stated in the NICE intrapartum guideline. By the time I was due to go home at 20:00 she was 8 cm dilated. We handed care over to the midwife on the night shift and introduced the midwife to the woman, her husband and birthing partner. With the woman not yet approaching full dilatation, this would give the woman time to build up a rapport to deliver with this midwife. I hate leaving after providing care for a woman all day, I am always eager to deliver, meet her baby and provide postnatal care but this is not always possible. I look forward finding out tomorrow how her delivery went and also if she had a boy or a girl.

So for me International Women’s Day was all about providing woman-centered care, treating this amazing woman and her family with respect and kindness. I can not think of anything I would have preferred to do on International Women’s Day…

My apologies, this post was going to originally be based on birth reflections but there was a slight change of plan when I delivered a baby right when I was supposed to go out with the midwife for birth reflections so, I will have to discuss this another time.

Thanks for taking time to read my post

With love always

JP

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