Tomorrow will be the first day of third year and I feel a little bit strange about the whole idea. It doesn't seem 5 minutes ago that I was just starting and I don't feel like I know enough to be in my final year; although I also can barely remember what it was like to not be a student if that makes sense? As a first year meeting a third year, I assumed that they were confident and knew what they were doing and it worries me that I don't feel confident at all and often feel that I don't know what I'm doing. However the rational part of me does recognise that I do know far more than I did two years ago and there are some things that I can now do easily.
I continue to meet with the women on my caseload and it's an odd experience in many ways. It's really lovely to see them and I am enjoying seeing their bodies change in pregnancy and share their excitement but at the same time it's a bit of an odd experience. When I go to an appointment with them, I am often coming from home, having been enjoying some time out and it then feels completely out of context unlike when I am on placement. I have to take a moment to put my professional hat on and to just think about what needs to be done.
Suddenly here I am 2 months later and suddenly realised that I didn't finish this blog post.....sorry! Anyway I am already back on placement and have faced a number of new challenges. I have spent two weeks with the Special Care Baby Unit and whilst I respect the work that they do, it's not the job for me. I did enjoy chatting with the parents there and it was very interesting to see the differences between the parents that had been to and fro the unit for some time and the parents of newly admitted babies. It must be such a frightening experience for them and not one any parent plans for when they start their pregnancy journey. I have also just read Saul: Between Two Eternities by Rosemary Kay which I found an addictive read. It's the story of a baby in a neonatal intensive care unit, told from the baby's perspective and a story I would recommend.
Since my time there I've been back in Delivery Suite and appear to be on a medicalised birth run at the moment. I'm getting good experience of theatre and emergencies but I am craving some normality....something which I expect happens to most students and maybe even qualified midwives at times. It has been a relief to see my case loading women and touch base with normality but I can't deny a normal birth would be very much welcomed right now. Still I can't complain too much because of the 40 deliveries that I have to facilitate before qualifying, I'm already up to 35.
In the midst of placement I am also starting work on my dissertation and so I am surrounded by articles, web pages, books etc. I am in the stage of reading as much as possible and trying not to get too confused by it all. I also have another assignment that I am trying to complete so that I can completely focus on my dissertation. It's all work work work at the moment. Soon we'll be on our Summer holidays and I will take some time out but also working as much as I can to get it all done as far as possible. Do I feel like a third year now? Yes I think I actually do...being back on delivery suite has helped me to recognise how much I do know. And yes I do still have a lot to learn but learning won't finish with qualifying and I certainly know who I can go to for answers or where to look information up. I won't worry about what I don't know, I'll just focus on learning as much as I can from the opportunities presented to me. It won't be long and I'll be starting the process of applying for jobs but lets just take it one step at a time...just like I tell all new mums to do!
Tuesday, 17 July 2012
Tuesday, 20 March 2012
A matter of confidence
When I completed the Community part of my placement, I was feeling quite confident of my abilities as a student midwife, felt that I was doing well with my training. Fast forward to now and my Delivery Suite placement and that confidence is gone. I was told at the beginning of my training that there would be times that I would question whether or not this career was for me, that my confidence could sink and rise relatively easily and whilst I'd believed them, this is the first time it's affected me.
So what happened to cause this dip in confidence? I think in part, it is due to me facing situations I haven't dealt with before, combined with working with people I haven't worked with before. One thing that really helps with training is continuity, particularly with regards to your mentor. Whilst it is also good to work with different people so that you can see how different people work and choose your own way of working, it's hard because you have to learn how they prefer to work and adapt quickly. I find it quite hard to adapt quickly. I take my time to settle into a new situation, and to settle to working with someone new. I like to observe initially and get an idea of how someone works, what they are like and then I settle and start showing what I am capable of. This is not always a good thing to do as when you are on a short placement, it means that you aren't showcasing your talents, then when it comes to being graded, you might be marked as not being confident. I'm hoping that when I'm on my next placement I can return to working with someone I already know.
Another reason my confidence has been knocked slightly is because of the new situations I have been facing. Prior to this placement I think I had been to theatre only 3 times and yet during this placement I spent most of my time in theatre - it happens! However it is definitely an area I wasn't so confident in, as I hadn't built up my skills yet. The first time I went to theatre, I scrubbed to take the baby so didn't really get to witness what happens. By the end of this placement I am now more confident - I can now scrub quickly, I know what needs to be done, although I've not been doing it all yet, I feel I have a better understanding of what happens.
I don't think I cared for someone having a normal, low risk labour either....women with blood pressure problems, epidurals, inductions etc... I certainly haven't looked after anyone who didn't need continuous monitoring and I am hoping to return to the midwife led unit in my 3rd year to remind myself what a low risk labour can be like! I have, however, improved some of my other skills - such as inserting a catheter, performing more vaginal examinations and beginning to feel like some of it makes sense. However this semester I received some of my lowest marks and that has definitely knocked my confidence. Grading is always a nerve wracking experience and we all hope for a good mark. I'm ok at assignments - not brilliant - but I do ok. I always hope for my placement grades to bring up my overall average though. When I started my course I had high hopes of achieving a 2:1 or possibly even a 1:1 but these days I just want a degree - that's not putting myself down, it's just that this course is blooming hard and it's so subjective to who is grading you. I want to do well, for myself but ultimately as long as I can be a midwife then that is all that matters!
So what happened to cause this dip in confidence? I think in part, it is due to me facing situations I haven't dealt with before, combined with working with people I haven't worked with before. One thing that really helps with training is continuity, particularly with regards to your mentor. Whilst it is also good to work with different people so that you can see how different people work and choose your own way of working, it's hard because you have to learn how they prefer to work and adapt quickly. I find it quite hard to adapt quickly. I take my time to settle into a new situation, and to settle to working with someone new. I like to observe initially and get an idea of how someone works, what they are like and then I settle and start showing what I am capable of. This is not always a good thing to do as when you are on a short placement, it means that you aren't showcasing your talents, then when it comes to being graded, you might be marked as not being confident. I'm hoping that when I'm on my next placement I can return to working with someone I already know.
Another reason my confidence has been knocked slightly is because of the new situations I have been facing. Prior to this placement I think I had been to theatre only 3 times and yet during this placement I spent most of my time in theatre - it happens! However it is definitely an area I wasn't so confident in, as I hadn't built up my skills yet. The first time I went to theatre, I scrubbed to take the baby so didn't really get to witness what happens. By the end of this placement I am now more confident - I can now scrub quickly, I know what needs to be done, although I've not been doing it all yet, I feel I have a better understanding of what happens.
I don't think I cared for someone having a normal, low risk labour either....women with blood pressure problems, epidurals, inductions etc... I certainly haven't looked after anyone who didn't need continuous monitoring and I am hoping to return to the midwife led unit in my 3rd year to remind myself what a low risk labour can be like! I have, however, improved some of my other skills - such as inserting a catheter, performing more vaginal examinations and beginning to feel like some of it makes sense. However this semester I received some of my lowest marks and that has definitely knocked my confidence. Grading is always a nerve wracking experience and we all hope for a good mark. I'm ok at assignments - not brilliant - but I do ok. I always hope for my placement grades to bring up my overall average though. When I started my course I had high hopes of achieving a 2:1 or possibly even a 1:1 but these days I just want a degree - that's not putting myself down, it's just that this course is blooming hard and it's so subjective to who is grading you. I want to do well, for myself but ultimately as long as I can be a midwife then that is all that matters!
Monday, 2 January 2012
Working in the community
Before Christmas I was working in Community which I do love. I particularly like it when I see women before and after the birth of their baby, or to see women on their first day home and then to see them when they are being discharged. In both situations, I have witnessed many changes in the women. I have witnessed the nervous woman become a confident mother, and I have witnessed the confident professional become very unsure and lost when faced with a tiny helpless baby. Babies are certainly unpredictable and it doesn't matter how many books you read before they are born, you simply can't be fully prepared.
One of the most common questions to be asked as a Midwife is "is this normal?" - this might be during pregnancy or after the birth but it gets asked a lot. 99% of the time (a guess, I haven't sat and worked out a statistic) I would say yes, that it is perfectly normal. Babies are born with their own personalities and all we can do is respond to their needs to the best of our abilities. In the early days this often means trying to guess at what they need...mentally going through the checklist - hungry? nappy needs changing? too hot or too cold? tired? It's all guess work really until you can begin to learn your baby's cues.
Frequently new mothers ask about how to get their baby to sleep in the moses basket/crib/cot...anywhere rather than lying on Mum. Don't worry I did the same myself, in fact I think I spent the first 2 years of my eldest's life wondering and worrying about how to get her to sleep anywhere but near or on me - she had to be in contact in some way, whether lying on me or just having a hand on me. Generally I advise new mothers to cuddle their babies...shocking I know...but the baby has spent 9 months inside Mum, able to hear her heart beating as a constant sound, and never before having experienced hunger, temperature, gravity and yet we expect babies to suddenly sleep by themselves. Birth is a shock to them and they need reassurance and comfort. I also advise trying putting something that smells of Mum in the crib, warming the crib with a hot water bottle (ensuring to remove it before baby goes in) so it's not suddenly cold on their back, giving baby to Dad to settle for sleep, a slumber bear if they can afford one but what works for one baby won't work for another, and sometimes what works one night won't work the next, and sometimes it feels that nothing works at all. It can simply be a case of give it time...it certainly was the case with my eldest daughter. My younger daughter was far easier - she'd sleep anywhere! I certainly don't believe it was anything I did that made her more likely to sleep, just that she was born with that kind of personality. So give it time, cuddle your baby, try these things by all means but I promise that at some point, your baby will be able to go to sleep by themselves. I have been on the receiving end of such advice and at the time it felt like useless advice, the tiredness was relentless, and that even one more night was one night too many but I hope it brings comfort to know that yes this is normal for many babies.
I seem to have wandered into the realms of sleepless nights and generic advice but it is something that new mums ask about so often that I feel it's worth discussion. Certainly I feel that the lack of sleep I endured when my children were younger has prepared me well for night shifts as a midwife. As a breastfeeding mother helper, helping to run the group, the women that came along would frequently ask for help with sleep and their babies. We live in a society where "sleeping through the night" appears to be main focus, the ultimate goal, particularly in the early days and then with some desperation as time goes by. However if were simply to accept that babies wake in the night for an indefinite period of time, is it not easier to cope with? That actually the norm is not for babies to sleep through the night, but for them to wake regularly to feed and that at times they will sleep for longer and other times they will wake more frequently, such as during growth spurts which again are normal. I know that I found it far easier to deal with my second child's nightly wakings because I was prepared for it. I was still exhausted at times, and I still complained about it but I didn't waste energy trying to fight it or find an answer to it. I tried things to see if it helped but I didn't worry if it didn't, I just recognised that she wasn't ready yet. However I did have the advantage of not working at that time, I wasn't yet a student either. My eldest spent mornings at nursery so I used that time to catch up a bit and rest. I think we have a tendancy in this country to try and push ourselves back to normal as soon as possible and actually we'd do well to stop and learn about our babies, spend time with them, allow time to recover from the birth properly...focus on what's important...not on having a show home, or getting out and about as quickly as possible, make use of friends and family to help out if you can. This is of course all very idealistic and I do realise that but I can dream, at least when I'm allowed to sleep that is. At the very least I think this is useful advice for those very early days....stop, rest, recover and cuddle your baby.
One of the most common questions to be asked as a Midwife is "is this normal?" - this might be during pregnancy or after the birth but it gets asked a lot. 99% of the time (a guess, I haven't sat and worked out a statistic) I would say yes, that it is perfectly normal. Babies are born with their own personalities and all we can do is respond to their needs to the best of our abilities. In the early days this often means trying to guess at what they need...mentally going through the checklist - hungry? nappy needs changing? too hot or too cold? tired? It's all guess work really until you can begin to learn your baby's cues.
Frequently new mothers ask about how to get their baby to sleep in the moses basket/crib/cot...anywhere rather than lying on Mum. Don't worry I did the same myself, in fact I think I spent the first 2 years of my eldest's life wondering and worrying about how to get her to sleep anywhere but near or on me - she had to be in contact in some way, whether lying on me or just having a hand on me. Generally I advise new mothers to cuddle their babies...shocking I know...but the baby has spent 9 months inside Mum, able to hear her heart beating as a constant sound, and never before having experienced hunger, temperature, gravity and yet we expect babies to suddenly sleep by themselves. Birth is a shock to them and they need reassurance and comfort. I also advise trying putting something that smells of Mum in the crib, warming the crib with a hot water bottle (ensuring to remove it before baby goes in) so it's not suddenly cold on their back, giving baby to Dad to settle for sleep, a slumber bear if they can afford one but what works for one baby won't work for another, and sometimes what works one night won't work the next, and sometimes it feels that nothing works at all. It can simply be a case of give it time...it certainly was the case with my eldest daughter. My younger daughter was far easier - she'd sleep anywhere! I certainly don't believe it was anything I did that made her more likely to sleep, just that she was born with that kind of personality. So give it time, cuddle your baby, try these things by all means but I promise that at some point, your baby will be able to go to sleep by themselves. I have been on the receiving end of such advice and at the time it felt like useless advice, the tiredness was relentless, and that even one more night was one night too many but I hope it brings comfort to know that yes this is normal for many babies.
I seem to have wandered into the realms of sleepless nights and generic advice but it is something that new mums ask about so often that I feel it's worth discussion. Certainly I feel that the lack of sleep I endured when my children were younger has prepared me well for night shifts as a midwife. As a breastfeeding mother helper, helping to run the group, the women that came along would frequently ask for help with sleep and their babies. We live in a society where "sleeping through the night" appears to be main focus, the ultimate goal, particularly in the early days and then with some desperation as time goes by. However if were simply to accept that babies wake in the night for an indefinite period of time, is it not easier to cope with? That actually the norm is not for babies to sleep through the night, but for them to wake regularly to feed and that at times they will sleep for longer and other times they will wake more frequently, such as during growth spurts which again are normal. I know that I found it far easier to deal with my second child's nightly wakings because I was prepared for it. I was still exhausted at times, and I still complained about it but I didn't waste energy trying to fight it or find an answer to it. I tried things to see if it helped but I didn't worry if it didn't, I just recognised that she wasn't ready yet. However I did have the advantage of not working at that time, I wasn't yet a student either. My eldest spent mornings at nursery so I used that time to catch up a bit and rest. I think we have a tendancy in this country to try and push ourselves back to normal as soon as possible and actually we'd do well to stop and learn about our babies, spend time with them, allow time to recover from the birth properly...focus on what's important...not on having a show home, or getting out and about as quickly as possible, make use of friends and family to help out if you can. This is of course all very idealistic and I do realise that but I can dream, at least when I'm allowed to sleep that is. At the very least I think this is useful advice for those very early days....stop, rest, recover and cuddle your baby.
Photos courtesy of Marie Donn Photography
Friday, 18 November 2011
Passion and Inspiration
Sometimes I find myself bogged down in the workload. For example, at the moment we are working on two assignments, about to return to placement and in January we have a presentation and a biology exam. In the midst of this, I am also attending meetings in my capacity as set rep and trying to plan for Christmas, spend time with my family and friends and there just isn't enough hours in the week. Consequently I'm a little rundown at the moment, with cold after cold and a constant feeling of tiredness. So it's easy to wonder how I maintain my passion for midwifery, and to keep that light at the end of the tunnel to aim for.
I try to maintain my passion for midwifery through reading - I'm always interested in the use of techniques I've never seen in practice and that we're unlikely to be taught. For example, the use of water blisters to help with the pain in a back to back labour. If you've not heard of them before then have a read, it's really interesting. Something else I was reading about recently was a technique for dealing with shoulder dystocia where the mother is aided into a running start position which is explained here.
I also recently attended a water birth study day which re-ignited my passion for water birth and home birth. Prior to beginning the course, it was of course my own home water birth that inspired me to become a midwife and yet I am still to attend one myself. The study day reminded me of how to trust in women to be able to birth their babies without any intervention. It also highlighted to me the amount of fear there is surrounding home birth - from the health professionals as well as the women. Fortunately this isn't true of everyone but clearly a significant enough number for the percentage of women having a home birth to be extremely low. According to Birth Choice UK, just 2.39% of births in the UK were home births and in the area where I work just 2.2%, a figure which hasn't changed much in the past 10 years.
This week I was fortunate to be able to attend the RCM student midwives conference in Brighton. As well as the superb amount of freebies from all the stands that were there, I also had the opportunity to listen to some inspirational speakers. I was able to hear from other students, newly qualified midwives and midwives who had been working in the profession for a long time. If you ever get the chance to attend then I thoroughly recommend it. It's hard for me to sum up exactly how much you can gain from the experience. I'd also recommend any other conferences you can attend, such as the ARM conference or any other event where you might have the opportunity to hear such inspirational speakers.
So when I'm feeling the pressure of my workload and all I'm really doing is worrying about how I am going to get it all done, to the best of my ability, sometimes I just take some time out to remind myself why I am doing it and I then find I can focus better on my work. Alternatively I also have times when I just have to push on, push past the point where I feel everything I am writing is rubbish, to the point where it begins to make sense. Trust me, it does happen sometimes.
If you haven't done so already, can you please sign the petition for more midwives!
http://www.rcm.org.uk/college/campaigns-events/protect-maternity-services/
I try to maintain my passion for midwifery through reading - I'm always interested in the use of techniques I've never seen in practice and that we're unlikely to be taught. For example, the use of water blisters to help with the pain in a back to back labour. If you've not heard of them before then have a read, it's really interesting. Something else I was reading about recently was a technique for dealing with shoulder dystocia where the mother is aided into a running start position which is explained here.
I also recently attended a water birth study day which re-ignited my passion for water birth and home birth. Prior to beginning the course, it was of course my own home water birth that inspired me to become a midwife and yet I am still to attend one myself. The study day reminded me of how to trust in women to be able to birth their babies without any intervention. It also highlighted to me the amount of fear there is surrounding home birth - from the health professionals as well as the women. Fortunately this isn't true of everyone but clearly a significant enough number for the percentage of women having a home birth to be extremely low. According to Birth Choice UK, just 2.39% of births in the UK were home births and in the area where I work just 2.2%, a figure which hasn't changed much in the past 10 years.
This week I was fortunate to be able to attend the RCM student midwives conference in Brighton. As well as the superb amount of freebies from all the stands that were there, I also had the opportunity to listen to some inspirational speakers. I was able to hear from other students, newly qualified midwives and midwives who had been working in the profession for a long time. If you ever get the chance to attend then I thoroughly recommend it. It's hard for me to sum up exactly how much you can gain from the experience. I'd also recommend any other conferences you can attend, such as the ARM conference or any other event where you might have the opportunity to hear such inspirational speakers.
So when I'm feeling the pressure of my workload and all I'm really doing is worrying about how I am going to get it all done, to the best of my ability, sometimes I just take some time out to remind myself why I am doing it and I then find I can focus better on my work. Alternatively I also have times when I just have to push on, push past the point where I feel everything I am writing is rubbish, to the point where it begins to make sense. Trust me, it does happen sometimes.
If you haven't done so already, can you please sign the petition for more midwives!
http://www.rcm.org.uk/college/campaigns-events/protect-maternity-services/
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