Re: [ozmidwifery] midwife is a midwife...?

[Geoff & Louise Wightman]

I encounter this every time I do shifts at a particular hospital in CQ, so much so I turn down casual shifts there unless I'm feeling particularly strong in mind and body. And my pet hate is being called a nurse instead of a midwife. cheers Louise ----- Original Message ----- From: Jo & Dean Bainbridge To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, April 09, 2004 1:25 PM Subject: [ozmidwifery] midwife is a midwife...? I read this today and wanted to chat about this without fear of being lynched! lol   And given a birth I attended last week with the worst hospital midwife I have ever met who was SO much less good than the obstetrician I am totally off the idea of a midwife is a midwife....   I am totally off the idea of a midwife is a midwife....     I would like to hazard a discussion that one of the problems we encounter is that there ARE a proportion of midwives who do not support what our definition of a midwives role/responsibility and so forth and these midwives are firmly entrenched in the system...so when a woman births in a hospital (as so many do) and go down the ob model (as so many do) they encounter some of these midwives and leave the woman thinking the midwife was "awful".    I know a that there are those wonderful woman focused midwives who still work labour ward and so on, so I am not suggesting they are all 'bad'; but would you say that the midwives who do fit our definition are the ones who put their hands up for birth centre care and so on, thus leaving the 'obstetric nurse type'  who are less supportive to actively assisting the woman in any other way other than increasing the drip or topping up the drugs.   In a long winded, public holiday type way I am saying that : there are a few people who would read a sticker like "I chose carefully: I chose a midwife" and say "the midwife I had was a bitch! I would never chose her!"  The public are almost blind to the fact midwives are midwives not nurses, so to then extend that understanding to the two types of midwives (which I call ob nurses -"yes doctor, no doctor type" and the with woman midwife) is an ask.    Perhaps we need to suggest a system that does define the midwife from the obstetric nurse??   I have heard from practicing midwives that they are not supportive to things like case load or community midwifery because "...don't want that type of responsibility" (actual quote).  I have no idea of how this would be done and not suggesting it would even work; but we must be aware when addressing the general public we are aware that there is a difference between those midwives who see women as someone to be empowered and those who see the woman as someone to be rescued: but do the general public??   "My Midwife empowered me to birth beautifully!"   (awaiting the hate mail! lol) Jo Bainbridge