Celebrating International Day of the Midwife
Every year on International Day of the Midwife (5 May), we celebrate the enormous contribution our midwives make across the NHS, health and social care, our communities and the world. This year we will be celebrating on 3 May so all staff can celebrate with us.
This gives us an opportunity to pause for a moment and reflect on the dedication and expertise of our diverse and highly skilled workforce, and the difference those within it make to so many women and families every single day.
We would like to give a large thank you to all our midwives at NBT by sharing their stories and invite our staff, patients and visitors to celebrate their hard work with us.
Below are stories, experiences and thanks from our midwives in line with Brunel’s 10th Birthday celebration:
Florbela Vaz, Midwife
Has worked at NBT for 4 years and has been a midwife for 25 years.
I joined NBT four years ago and have been working in the Community as a Midwife, doing the continuity of care for a few years. I wasn't very happy just doing the community care, I wanted to follow the pregnancies, give support to the women and families, and now I do that, and it is amazing. Giving antenatal care, intrapartum care, and post Natal care, every day I am trying to provide the best care and the right choice for them.
We as midwives need to make sure the woman, family and baby are safe. I build a relationship with that family, and sometimes we also need to advocate for the women. When I first started, I was a very shy person so this was hard, but doing this job has made me understand that I definitely can make them feel safe and happy and that is one of the reasons why I am still doing this job today.
As a midwife we need to deal with different and new things every day at NBT and every day is a school day, and I am learning something new. I think we make a huge difference in people's lives, and it is making us grow as a person professionally and build a new world, especially for those families. In my opinion, being a midwife is one of the most enjoyable jobs you can have in the world.
Claire Law, Midwife
Has been at NBT for one year and has been a midwife for 2 years.
It is a real honour to be able to be there for women, to support them through the most vulnerable and powerful moment of their lives in the kind of environment that we can provide them at NBT.
I think we've got a diverse team of strong midwives and we are all passionate about women's rights and supporting women's autonomy through labour, birth and choices they want to make. We have good facilities here and we prioritize keeping the unit open and you can see how valuable it is, not just for clinical outcomes but also for women to have a right to access this kind of low-risk care.
It is the best centre and the low-risk care we provide, makes me want to stay here at NBT. I'm really passionate about the service we can provide with the home birth team. Just being surrounded by like-minded colleagues that have the same outlook about women's autonomy and their right to decide over what happens to them and their baby is really nice.
My managers Beth Connelly and Beth Thornley deserve everything. They are inspirational managers and care about every single one of us. They care about the women, and they are out there fighting for low care to get the recognition and the funding it deserves. As managers, they do it in such a compassionate way. I think we are just lucky to have both of them here for us, and the women are lucky to have them too.
Abby Jane Smith, Midwife
Has worked at NBT for 7 years.
I think the team has always been really welcoming and development is quite good. The team is supportive and there are a lot of diverse roles at Southmead. So many familiar, happy and funny people, it is nice and I love where I am now on Mendip. You can ask any questions and know that you're not going to feel judged. Even though you are the midwife who's caring for a woman, it is not just one midwife mind that has made that plan, it is a group. Everyone can put forward ideas and it is not just one mind, which I think it's very lovely.
I am on the transitional care ward, which is post-natal care, it is baby-centered and so lovely and different. You develop close relationships with these women and their families. And I think the surprising thing is, you see a lot of the ups and downs, it's quite an emotionally supportive role. It is great just to see a woman have that faith in herself. I find it hard to express how amazing it feels, you feed off that positive energy.
I want to thank transitional care nurses. They are so fantastic. We are so lucky and blessed to have such an amazing transition and they are so autonomous. We are very lucky as a team to have midwives and nurses.
Beth Thornley, Midwife and Supervisory Ward Sister
Has been at NBT for 10 years.
Brunel opened when I was qualifying and very new to the role and it was exciting. What I like about being a midwife is that you get to meet people every single day and from various backgrounds. I think that is what is interesting about my job, specifically in a midwifery-led setting. We work a lot around considering patient choices, and it is exciting to be supportive about making decisions that are right for them. It shows the importance of individualized care and that somebody going through pregnancy care needs different considerations to find what works for them. Being able to support different women from different backgrounds, and making the choices that work for them is probably what I enjoy most about my job. It's not just about physically delivering babies. It's about supporting them with information.
At NBT it feels like one massive team of people as opposed to two separate teams that are supporting different types of women with different types of pregnancies. We are all working towards the same aim. It's friendly, has a good ethos, and a good vibe.
Yesica McCann, Midwife
Has been at NBT for 5 years.
What I enjoy most about being a midwife is the variety of work and the fact that we work with different people. It is never the same because we have different people and families, and you are a part of one of their most important days when they may be feeling scared or vulnerable. I like to be there and empower them and make sure everyone is safe and happy at the end of the day.
I want to thank our maternity support workers who are a huge part of our patients receiving excellent care. They are amazing and have so many skills. We need a second person present when a baby is born, support workers are often there as a second person, and they have a lot of knowledge to help those women and to help us if there's an emergency. We really do feel it when they are not there.
Carla Hughes, Midwife
Has been working at NBT for 4 years.
I work on transitional care and the birthing centre. Often we care for babies and mums that need extra support including emotional and parenting guidance.
I feel really privileged to be part of a team of passionate midwives and nursery nurses and MSWs that support me on the birth centre and transitional care. The encouragement of using low risk facilities is so valuable here at NBT. Our home birth team is growing as well, which is special.
At NBT we support women. The women here are amazing and so strong. You see so many different women from different backgrounds and ethnicities. I feel so lucky that I enjoy my job, every day varies.
Rachel Cox, Ward Sister
Has been working at NBT for 22 years.
As a person, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am a daughter and I am a midwife. It is a part of who I am.
I went into midwifery because I wanted to help and support people and that is exactly what I do, it is very much part of my makeup. It is not the type of job you do for the money like anything in healthcare, it is a calling. It is part of who I am, and even on the hardest days and the hardest times, I couldn't not be a midwife. I am part of a very special time for these new mums and families. I am creating new parents and supporting new parents, I am guiding them through which is such a privilege.
I am in a privileged place to be a part of that journey for them. They are scared, they are vulnerable, and they need that support, and that's what I enjoy, giving them that support and watching them flourish as well when they first come down to the ward.
The team that I work with is incredibly supportive and incredibly kind and we very much see ourselves as a family and not just a clinical team. We hold the ethos, that if we look after each other, we can look after our women. We are not always perfect, but what we do is act upon that incredibly quickly. When we make improvements, it is with the women at the forefront of that change because they are the most important people within our directorate.
Just as much as it is International Day of the Midwife, Maternity Care includes so many other people and it is those people that are paramount to the care that we give. I want to thank my maternity support workers, reception staff, housekeepers, domestics, and volunteers. Everybody that works here on the ward with me is part of that team and without any of them, we wouldn't be able to give any of this care.
Beverly Alden, Senior Midwife Coordinator
Has worked at NBT for 41 years.
The best thing about my job is the women and just being a part of their journey, it's a fantastic job and you never get over the births. I just love it.
I am very lucky to have had this career for so long, that I have enjoyed without hesitation. NBT is well recognised for being one of the hospitals that advocate for women and their birth choices. We help them make an informed choice which is really important.
I think part of my role as a coordinator is to together with the Flow Manager help keep the flow through the unit and to keep everyone motivated, supported, and happy on the shift. There are many ways to do this, it can be, giving somebody a cup of coffee, or listening to them have a little moan, listening can be very important. You can take on a mother role, a daughter role or a sister role, depending on the age of the person, just to listen to them.
We work as a team in the maternity unit. If I don't have a clean floor and I don't have a clean bed, then I can't bring women into the unit. Everybody from the lady who gives the meals, theatre teams, maw’s, domestics, housekeepers and porters to the consultants and the midwives, everybody has a role that is pivotal to the success of the unit.