My big feels about midwifery on IDM
It's International Day for Midwives today and I have such a mix of big feels atm about the state of midwifery. At a time when midwives are leaving the profession in in droves, I am going back...💫
After 3 years working behind the scenes clinically, I am returning to the profession that almost broke me...
When I left back in March 2023, I was battered, bruised and ill, I had been pushed to limits I didn't know I had through working during the blip, burn out, as a trade union representative for a union I would not touch with a barge pole now. I advocated, hard, for the bodily autonomy of those in my care clinically but also for my colleagues when theirs and my own job was put at risk. I had started additional studies and been selected for a Fellowship programme (first midwife to do so), both of which left me utterly perplexed at the management, their decisions and their treatment of the staff they were supposed to be leading🤷🏾
I made the decision to leave because it was a choice of my health & pregnancy or the job...
Since then I have, with the exception of maternity leave, continued to work privately through my business in addition to my NHS role, watching and observing the profession from the sidelines, listening to my friends, some of whom had left around the same time as me and those who chose to remain discuss how they were recovering or surviving...
Long before I left and then afterwards, I had many discussions with Kelly Silk, Leisa Masters and a few others about why we stayed, what we put ourselves through and the complex trauma bonding, moral distress or corporate Stockholm Syndrome we were experiencing?
Kelly and I spoke about putting ourselves on call or going the extra (hundred) miles for our caseload because we constantly wanted to protect them and for what?
Was it a saviour complex?
What was/is it?
Was it because we were gas lit from when we were at university about how 'we, would be the change that midwifery needed?'
Now looking back, that was when it started for me, the passion, the need for change, the advocacy... Now, in hindsight I feel frustrated, because the cohorts in front of me, the incredibly passionate burnt out midwives, if they and we were supported to work how we should be able to, to support women in their chosen places of birth, in a system that didn't pathologise or create hysteria about a bodily function that has managed to keep the human race going for a millennia - would we be in the position we are now? When an analysis done based on NHS figures show that the potential cost of maternity negligence claims in England since 2019 has reached £27.4 billion, which significantly exceeds the estimated £18 billion budget allocated to maternity care over the same period🚩
When over a decade after I qualified, this year over 2,800 student midwives are qualifying in England this year and fewer than 10 jobs have been advertised nationally. TEN. That means roughly 0.36% of them can expect to secure employment. And for what? No job at the end? No opportunity to do the work they trained so hard for?
Midwifery training demands everything from you as a student. We work long shifts, nights, weekends and bank holidays for free. We travel miles to placements, when I was on one of my community rotations, I had to be at the train station for 0500, to get a train that went 45 minutes in the opposite direction to get another train that would take me the station nearest to placement, to then get a bus to get there on time to start at 0830, 5 days a week. We pay to work. Racking up over £40,000 in student debt; a figure that will only grow because of inflation and interest rates. I managed to get from September to the Easter in my first year until my rent bounced using my savings, so had to get a job. On top of studying 🥴
Students in England are facing a student loan "scandal" due to ballooning debt, high interest rates and frozen repayment thresholds that make repayment almost impossible. With over £250 billion in total outstanding debt, many graduates will see their debt increase despite regular payments, creating a "predatory" system that acts as a lifetime tax 🤢
So yeah, for some reason I'm going back and I don't take this decision lightly, my situation now is different, I have a family, my mental health is better, my physical health is better, but the scars remain, but it is a calling, a vocation. However, my tolerance for bullshit is much lower. I worked fucking hard to get my degree, I worked fucking hard for the women I cared for and I miss the bare bones of my midwifery. The connections I made, the conversations I had, the moments I witnessed, the joyful ones and the heart wrenching ones. I have met some of the most powerful individuals in my life through this job, I met them in pregnancy, was honoured to be at their birth and watch them grow as a family🌀
I feel like I owe it to myself and those people of the future to try again, will it be forever? Maybe not, I've got decisions to make in the future without a doubt...
The odd, controlling, coercive relationship I have with the NHS is a tricky one to navigate and leave, like any shitty partner you've been involved with, but this time round my boundaries are firmer and if all else fails, there are other options of Independent midwifery thanks to conversations with the likes of Zest 💞
But yeah, odd/exciting times ahead, stay tuned🔥
Sam ✨