Baby Loss Awareness Week

Today is the beginning of Baby Loss Awareness Week and tonight many women all over the world will be lighting candles to join in the Wave of Light, myself included. Will you join in?

Some time ago my friend Marie offered to write a guest post for me about baby loss and I didn't hesitate to accept. As often happens, life got busy and in the way, so it took some time to organise. However, both of us agreed that this week was the perfect timing and I think you'll agree that Marie offers some valuable advice to both students and qualified midwives alike. Thank you Marie x

How has this past week been for you? Has it been a normal week? Perhaps you were working long shifts in your local hospital, or you were on placement in the community. Maybe you were studying, or if you’re lucky you’ve been having a well-earned break.

I don’t know what all of you were doing, but I do know that about 120 of you last week were supporting someone who had lost a child to stillbirth or neonatal loss. And I know that 120 of you will be faced with doing this next week.

And then the same the week after.

And then the one after that.

Because as you may or may not already know, on average 17 babies older than 24 weeks’ gestation die every day in the UK, before or shortly after birth. As a midwife you absolutely will be dealing with these situations one day, repeatedly in most cases.

This week wasn’t a particularly out of the ordinary week, although you may well have seen more publicity about baby loss awareness recently. The campaign, for which I’m not a spokesperson may I say, brings together four UK charities that if you’re not aware of you could do worse than to have a read about: The Miscarriage Association, The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust, Antenatal Results and Choices, and Sands, the Stillbirth and neonatal death association.

Each of them publish guidelines and leaflets for health professionals as well as for those who are affected directly and indirectly by pregnancy and neonatal loss. Each of them offer support both for those affected and for you as healthcare professionals. I’ll even make it easy for you and link to some here, here and here.

Why do I care? Why should you care? And who am I anyway?

I’m Marie. I’m a 30-something mum from Essex, who wears either a personnel or photographer job hat depending on what day you find me – I’m certainly not in healthcare. I like cats and chocolate, but I try not to mix the two. I drive a little too fast sometimes, I bite my nails when I’m tired or bored, and I wish that Gok Wan made clothes for the shorter fatter people in society. My son died two years ago, before birth. I’m one of the women you might have met, or will meet one day.

So, when it’s ‘your’ week, what kind of midwife will you be for any of those 120 women, just like me?

Will you be the midwife who told me to ‘know my place’ in my first lost pregnancy, when I sat on the bed before she’d asked me to? Will you be the midwife who, in an open reception full of other pregnant women, asked me what SANDs did and what had happened, and didn’t know what the SANDs sticker on my notes meant? Will you be the midwife who assured me I would not be placed next to a labouring woman after my son died, but then couldn’t understand why I was traumatised when they did exactly that? Will you be the midwife who drew the curtains around my bed in HDU rather than have to watch me cry? Will you be the midwife who, after the scan to confirm my son had died, told me all about her children and large family? Will you be the midwife who dismissed my tears and told me off for raising my blood pressure without offering support to me?

And if you’re not a midwife, but you’re another healthcare professional, will you be the one who ignored my requests for pain medication and told me to keep the noise down so I didn’t upset others when I was labouring with my late miscarriage? Will you be the one who chatted about Christmas at the end of my bed instead of getting me the bedpan I had asked for? Will you be the one who refused to admit me, bleeding heavily and screaming, to ER until my husband had filled out forms?

Will you be the amazing midwife sonographer who supported me through multiple pregnancy losses and successful pregnancies, made time to talk in the waiting room, minimised the delay and wait for scans, and provided tissues when it was all too much? Will you be the comforting midwife who always made time to listen and explain when I didn’t understand the printout from the DAU during my exhausting last pregnancy and just COULDN’T leave the hospital before I knew whether my son was okay? Will you be the caring midwife who understood why I was distraught that I had been assigned to be seen by a junior instead of my consultant at a key stage in my subsequent pregnancy, and arranged a better appointment for me? Will you be the home-visit midwife who held me while I cried when she visited me to check my blood pressure after my son died, and made special trips to come and see me, taking her time to sign me off until she was sure that I could get through a day? Will you be the labour midwife who stayed by my side during my entire 7 hour labour with the boy who would never cry, open his eyes, or smile, helped my husband dress him, and took his precious pictures and handprints? Will you be one of the midwives who visited my other son in NICU when he arrived early and I was in recovery, taking personal delight in sharing a happy end to my story?

This week, as a midwife or a healthcare professional looking after pregnant women you cannot choose not to deal with these situations, in the same way that I and my fellow women have no choice but to endure them. You can, however, choose how to deal with them, and how you are remembered afterwards. What will you choose?

For some stats on Baby Loss watch this.

For more information click here.

And so begins 2nd Year

We are no longer shiny and new. We've all had different experiences on placement, good and not so good. We've all already started to think about the kind of midwife we want to be - learning from those we've been working with. We've even already become a little cynical about the changes we thought we could make because we've seen how restrictive working for the NHS can be.

I've been back in Uni for two days and already I feel revitalised and hopeful about my future. During one of courses we will be looking at hypnobirthing and complementary therapies and I am so excited...this is exactly the kind of midwife I want to be. I want to embrace normality and encourage women to believe in their bodies to give them the best possible chance of a normal birth. Did you know that it is a well known phenomenon that women's labours halt or slow down when they enter a hospital? Did you know that it was only once the doctors got involved that babies began to be born in hospitals instead of at home?

Don't get me wrong, I 100% believe that hospitals have their place and women and babies lives have been saved as a result. However I do believe that for the majority of women, home would be a perfectly safe place to give birth. I may well be biased having had personal experience of a home birth and loved it but it is something I am passionate about. Sadly I also believe that we are a long way off turning things around again. Women have different expectations now - they expect pain relief, they expect doctors or midwives to tell them what will happen and when, and so on. It's not that women are wrong but perhaps we are wrong in how we guide women's expectations if that makes sense?

It's not often that I hear people say that they loved their antenatal classes...at least not once they've had the baby. The most common statement I hear is that the classes didn't prepare them in any way? So is this where we are going wrong? Is this where we can make a huge difference to how birth and labour is viewed? I do believe that no-one can be fully prepared for just how much parenthood changes your life but I also believe we could prepare women better for birth, and increase the chances of a normal delivery. I've been on the receiving end of wonderful, inspirational antenatal discussion that led me to my home birth. However I was also fully prepared for if things hadn't gone to plan, and I still had plans in place to maintain control of MY birth. Shouldn't all women be given that opportunity?

I would also like to make the disclaimer that I am not saying that anyone who hasn't had a normal delivery, had unrealistic expectations. There is many factors to consider and I am certainly not in a position to judge whether or not someone was given the opportunity to have a normal delivery. Do you think you were well prepared for the birth of your baby?