The Midwife As Distinguished By Leap

Being a midwife does not only defined by assisting women in childbirth. The general dictionary definition are the misconception of how people view midwives. Being a midwife means to be ‘with women’ and this leads the construction of the midwifery philosophy, Page (2006) 5 steps and Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) competency standards, in order to provide the best women centred care (Australia Collage of Midwives, 2017). This essay will cover a constructive overview of what Page (2006) 5 steps of being a midwife means, it will also defined what women centred care is and emphasis on the importance it has for the woman. Understanding Page (2006) 5 steps and women centred care helped build the pathway for midwifery philosophy to correlate with NMBA competency standard in order to support midwifery practice. For

This essay will explore why consent and confidentiallity is important in midwifery practice. It will look into why it is needed and what can happen if these aspects are breeched in anyway. The National Health service was founded in 1948, this brought free healthcare to everyone. In 1902 the Midwives act becomes a law and midwifery became an established profession, fast forward to 2004 the midwives rules and standards are published and then amended in 2012 and in 2008 the code of conduct was brought into practice. These publications are legal documents in which all nurse and midwives must abide by. In these documents there are clear rules that surround both consent and confidentiality (NHS Choices 2014)

The Australian College of Midwives believes that it is the right of every pregnant woman to have access to continuity of care by a known midwife for her pregnancy, labour and early postnatal period. Midwives are the most appropriate primary care providers for healthy mothers and newborn babies and are able to refer to specialist medical care if the need arises (Hicks, Spurgeon & Barwell, 2003). Midwives must work within the competency standards enforced by The ANMC Australian Nursing & Midwifery Council (2006) in order to obtain and practice as a registered midwife in Australia. Competency 4 states Midwives should “promote safe and effective practice” (ANMC, 2006), this is achievable by providing Midwifery continuity of care to women and

I believe as a Midwifery Student at Australian Catholic University (ACU) that childbirth is a natural life process. Within my philosophy, my aim is to provide a women-centred care based on evidence- based practice. Also the importance of supporting women with cultural variation, social circumstance and understanding other specific needs throughout the woman’s pregnancy. The women-centred care is an essential quality to a midwife as it ensure that the women is educated in healthy lifestyle choices within pregnancy, childbirth and during parenthood. This relationship of “women-centred care” is the key to midwifery practices as Australian College of Midwives (2009) refers to the philosophy of maternity care that promotes a holistic approach by recognising each women’s social, emotional, physical, spiritual and cultural needs. In retrospect, it is important to reflect on your past experiences during your midwifery practice but also your life beyond midwifery.

In this article, the authors explored the continuity of midwifery care using the caseload approach that was established in Queensland. This was to address the development of care for women experiencing inequalities and to improve birth outcomes. The authors objective was to investigate midwife’s responsibilities within their scope of practice when applying a caseload model (Midwifery Group Practice [MGP]).

This report will evaluate the roles and responsibilities of a midwife. “Midwifery encompasses care of women during pregnancy, labour, and the postpartum period, as well as care of the new-born.”(WHO, 2015) This is a recent definition and clearly points out that a midwife has many roles and responsibilities. The NMC Codes of Conduct will be evaluated with specific emphasis on recent changes within healthcare. These changes took place as a result of the tragedies at Mid-Staffordshire Hospital in 2005-2009 and are the outcome of the Francis report in order to improve care given to patients.

For hundred of years, women have wrestled with their womanhood, bodies, and what it means to be a woman in our society. Being a woman comes with a wonderful and empowering responsibility--giving birth. What sets us aside from other countries is that the process and expectations of giving birth has changed in our society; coming from midwifery, as it has always been since the early times, to hospitals where it is now expected to give birth at. Midwifery was a common practice in delivering babies in

Bernadette Ward RN, Midwife, Grad Cert Ed, MPHandTM, MHlth Sci Lecturer, Faculty of Health Sciences, La Trobe University, Bendigo, Australia. B.Ward@latrobe.edu.au Glenda Verrinder RN, Midwife, Grad Cert Higher Ed, Grad Dip Pub and Com Health, MHlth Sci Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Health Sciences, La Trobe University, Bendigo, Australia.

Professional Ethics in midwifery practice is a book speaking about just that, professional ethics within the field of midwifery practice. This book addresses what ethics actually are and how they apply to the profession today. Ethics are not tied into religion rather are the moral way for professionals to interact with their clients regardless of background, religious beliefs or ethnicity. Ethics are relevant in field of the healthcare system. Ethics serve to protect both the midwife and the client by helping the profession of midwifery be a trustworthy one. If the profession is trustworthy it builds the client’s confidence of the profession. Within the topic of ethics there are four broad topics. The first being the respect of autonomy, which

This essay aims to reflect upon a particular episode of care during the postnatal period, using a reflective cycle as a guide. The author will firstly discuss reflection and its implications in midwifery practice. Teekman (2000) states reflecting on one’s professional practice as self-empowering as it provides us with a look into personal understanding and control. It is believed that if us as midwives are given the opportunity to reflect upon our professional practice, that this will aid us in enhancing our professional practice and enable us to become better practitioners (Schon, 1983). Reflection is an important process for midwives to be able to, not only deal with particular situations well, but to help us as professionals grow and

This essay will be relating to an episode of care that was provided to a woman, her partner and their baby on day five during the postnatal period. It will examine the role of the midwife in relation to breastfeeding and how this was not achieved in the case study which is shown in the appendix. Throughout the essay it will look at the following outcomes: the role and responsibility of the midwife within current maternity care provision, the importance of sensitive midwifery, key legal and ethical dimensions of the midwife's role and key sociological and psychological agendas impacting on current maternity care.

NMC (2008) The Code: Standards of conduct, performance and ethics for nurses and midwives. London: Nursing and Midwifery Council

To truly imbody the philosophy of midwifery and ability to be with women and their whanau, a midwife’s practice must imbody the underpinning threads of midwifery. She must retain midwifery wisdom, scientific knowledge and acknowledgement of evidence based practice to recognise the abnormal and a midwives scope of practice (New Zealand College of Midwives, 2007). Normality throughout a woman’s childbearing continum needs to be promoted and facilitated, but a midwife must also be able to recognise the abnormal and the have the ability to competently provide care when situations become complicated. This semester has been challenging and eye-opening as I explore the complexity of abnormal and the sometimes fine line between it, and normal. My knowledge and practice reasoning has been tested as I expand my abilities to assess, anticipate and competently respond to changing clinical pictures. I have felt a heavy sense of responsibility and accountibility as I have been involved in increasingly complex cares, and have challanged myself to always facilitate partnership during difficult situations. I have also focused on my cultural competency, and ability to nuture and protect the beliefs of others.

This is the beginning of the mother’s involvement with the midwife. This is an opportunity for both parties to establish a personal relationship, partnership. This is where education exchange can occur, recognition of responsibilities, options and choices are determined which are supported and discussed with the mother and her supporters. (Pairman, 2010, pg. 431-432)

This model identifies midwifery partnership as a relationship of ‘sharing’ between the women and the midwife, involving trust, shared control and responsibility and shared meaning through mutual understanding. It is the sharing relationship which constitutes midwifery and it is one which spans the life experience of pregnancy and childbirth. (Guilliland, K., & Pairman, S, 2010, p. 7).