Making a Midwife

24/05/2022

Dr Bradfield, a Senior Midwifery Research Fellow at Curtin University and King Edward Memorial Hospital, is the recipient of a 2022 CRE HiPP Practising Health Professional Capacity Building award. She is using the award funds to build an education program that will help midwives around Australia to....

10/02/2022

Dear Midwifery Student...

I always try to re-share this blog post on or around Valentine's Day.

It's my love letter to student midwives and anyone else who needs a bit of TLC right now.

It's called eight things I'd like to share with midwifery students who care.

You can read it at https://www.sarawickham.com/original-articles/eight-things-id-like-to-share-with-midwifery-students-who-care/

I hope you enjoy it.

But I have one more gift for all students to share today.

The kindle version of my book for students, "101 tips for planning, writing an surviving your dissertation" is on sale for £1.99 from now until the end of February.

It's for all students (not just those studying midwifery or health-related fields) and the tips are useful from day one or your studies, or even before!

Grab that at https://amzn.to/3ETy9ZS

And Happy Valentine's Day 💜

25/01/2022

Go Emma!

Looking for Midwives with home environment experience

Our Masters of Midwifery Research Candidate, Emma Ritchie, is conducting a grounded theory study on transcendent moments in birthing and dying, in the home environment. Emma is looking to engage with both Midwives and Palliative Care Nurses who have experience working in home environments.

For more information or to participate, please email Emma on [email protected]

Please share these recruitment flyers with your midwifery & palliative care networks.

19/01/2022

16/11/2021

An amazing line up of presenters including Molly O’Brien, Prof Mary Renfrew, Sheena Byrom and Dr Hazel Keedle!!!

15/11/2021

https://www.transformingmaternity.org.au/2021/11/mentoring-program-for-undergraduate-midwifery-students/?fbclid=IwAR3oopxP9AnFbDI0R1t-qcfBxL4pnZUeV8IPe20yKWmBNIepFNgtZGm5eiU

New research describes how the mentor-mentee relationship develops, and ultimately benefits both midwives and midwifery students

15/11/2021

11/11/2021

Welcome back Making a Midwife family!

In our last ep we spoke with , a registered midwife working in a Midwifery Group Practice in the Northern Territory. You may have seen Tylah on Youtube, Tiktok or even One Born Every Minute Australia. She is a passionate midwife who is generously sharing her knowledge and experiences with all of us. Tylah also works with women and parents empowering them to feel confident in their journey towards an intentional pregnancy, birth and parenting journey. During her time as a midwife she has made it a goal to immerse and educate herself in any aspect that will increase a woman’s experience training in acupressure, calm birth, water birth, complementary therapies such as reflexology and aromatherapy, optimal fatal positioning as well as participating in further education in breastfeeding, perinatal mental health and currently sleep consulting.

Tylah chats through her experiences and the ways in which her work environments have changed and her journey through midwifery.

Tylah’s social media 📲
Website: https://midwifetylah.com
Instagram:
TikTok:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzOlVJNoBjJ14QQOOLsDU4A/videos

Thank you for joining us for todays episode. We are so grateful for your support and encouragement!

Meg and Bon 💕

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/22Q5v6BdPD9mHOHC4J8rpy?si=yN2c8iStSEidbmll6WC89w

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/making-a-midwife/id1525329826?i=1000539348579

05/11/2021

When you see a friend or loved one experiencing immeasurable grief of losing a baby or child, it can be common for people to want to fix or solve the problem.

Sadly, you cannot solve this, and there's no way of fixing it.

All you can do is be guided by them for the best way you can help. There are better ways to help than others.

💜We have a section on our grief and loss website that outlines how friends and family can help. https://rednosegriefandloss.org.au/support/section/C11

05/11/2021

02/11/2021

The Promoting Normal Birth Conference is usually just available to Victorians- but this year it's virtual! So grab your ticket here: https://www.midwives.org.au/events/promoting-normal-birth-conference

20/10/2021

Wow!!! Quite inexpensive to make as well!

Now THAT ☝️ is an inviting birth environment! ✨

As midwives, students and birth workers, we know that labour and birth tends to progress more easily, and all those hormones, particularly oxytocin, flow more freely, when women/birthing people feel:

✨ Safe
✨ Comfortable
✨ Supported
✨ Unobserved
✨ Calm

Whether you're supporting families at home, on the labour ward, or at a birth centre, there is SO much you can do to help them transform the birth space. From simple things, such as putting up fairly lights and LED candles, to maximising the space for optimum movement, we can support women and their families to create a positive birth space.

What are your top birth environment tips? 👇💜

10/10/2021

Hello Making a midwife family! We have had some requests to share the video from the presentation last week so here it is - its a bit of a reflection on the podcast and what we’ve learnt! Thankyou to everyone who has joined us by listening, encouraging, supporting and sharing with us! Xx

https://youtu.be/2S9_SkPKwEU

08/10/2021

Today Bonnie presented our now not so little podcast to the Australian College of Midwives virtual student conference! It was a creative video presentation which no doubt took hours to make, but was so impactful and perfect like everything you do Bonnie. 💕 ACM are keen to share the presentation to non-members too so will share when it is available. 🙂

What started off as Bonnie’s idea mid pandemic, has grown into a huge platform with over 35,000 listeners world wide! 🌏

It has been amazing to connect with students and researchers world wide, and given me so much more confidence having the knowledge, experiences and stories direct from midwifery activists, researchers, clinically practising midwives and the many beautiful and brave students who share their own journey and struggles but are ever open to sharing with us and our listeners.

If you have any friends thinking about midwifery, or any struggling midwifery students who could use an extra source of inspiration or validation of their experiences, send them our way! The podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms for free.

Side note: The quality of the episode editing gets better with each ep - we promise. 😂

Instagram:
Email: [email protected]

22/09/2021

To all those embarking on their midwifery degrees this month, firstly I’m sorry that Covid means it will still be a little different for a little while.

Welcome to the wild world of midwifery! A degree like no other. There is nothing funnier than a student from another course accidentally wandering into a midwifery lecture when we are in the middle of learning about perineal assessment and there’s a 20ft v***a projected on the screen.

You’ll be balancing learning how to write academically with delivering lubed up rubber babies from headless rubber bodies, being hoisted out of a birth pool by your colleagues or performing CPR on a robot that keeps sighing at you and blinking... it’s an experience.

It may well be the hardest three years of your life. I won’t lie to you. It is HARD. There is a lot to learn academically, emotionally and in practice. Knowing how to communicate empathetically in a difficult situation is just as important as learning how to assess cervical dilatation or venipuncture. You will witness the most vulnerable moments of a woman’s life. You will have the power to make or break her experience. Even during more difficult births you can and will make a difference holding a hand, maintaining eye contact and knowing exactly when to make a cup of tea.

There will be bodily fluids. ALL of them. Often all at once. Pack spare pants and socks and face wipes.

Be kind to yourselves, giving every part of yourselves to those in your care can very quickly empty your cup. Keep filling it, keep making plans, go for walks, book a massage, take a day off. There will be times at 4am on labour ward that you think you cannot possibly do it. But you can. And you will.

You will probably become a very different person, seeing people from all walks of life will change your views on life. Seeing life and death will change you. And change is hard. I went for counselling in my second year and it helped immensely.

But most of all, enjoy it. I am strangely jealous of everyone starting university this month. Whilst I never want to do it again (I’m so tired) I will always miss lectures, skills labs and a bacon bap and a latte on my way in.

Midwifery is an incredibly difficult profession, the pay isn’t great, the hours are long and the responsibility is enormous but there is NO high that beats the adrenaline rush and oxytocin buzz after a birth, especially when you’ve helped a woman to birth her baby the way she wanted.

I love my job, love love love it. And I hope you love it too.

Best (and hardest) three years of my life! Good luck ❤️

12/09/2021

📢 , feminists and advocates: Are you following PUSH Campaign?

PUSH is a decade-long global movement for women and the midwives who protect and uphold their rights and bodily autonomy.

PUSH will accelerate progress on reducing maternal and neonatal mortality, advance SRHR, address key barriers to women’s leadership in the global health workforce, and shift underlying gender norms that undervalue women’s rights, lives and work.

Join the movement now and : http://ow.ly/DvTU50G47Rt

10/09/2021

Attention Western Australian Midwives! Get along to your State Conference in November for a fantastic lineup of presentations including virtual keynote Dr Andrew Bisits.
Register here: https://www.midwives.org.au/events/wa-state-conference-2021

03/09/2021

EPISODE 53

Hey welcome back! We are so excited to share this episode with you. This week we chat with the wonderful and recent PhD graduate Dr Tanya Capper from Queensland. Tanya shares her journey through midwifery and current research projects looking into workplace bullying. This is a topic many of us might be familiar with as we navigate our way through placement. It was so interesting to hear Tanya's findings! Tanya also shed some light on a project exploring continuity and incarceration during pregnancy.

As always, we would love to hear from you! Whether you'd like to connect with us, share your story or let us know what you want to hear next, find us on social media and send us a message!
Instagram -
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Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Making.a.Midwife/

Bonnie and Meg x