Reflections on Midwifery Practice: Andrea shares her paper
Andrea Taylor, a community midwife and MSc Student within Nursing Studies, shares her experience on writing a reflective paper and putting it out ‘there’.
Andrea’s paper is entitled ‘Person-centred care in practice’, and was published in the British Journal of Midwifery.
I am a midwife and I have always thought of midwifery as having a fundamentally woman/person centred, one could say feminist, ethic. Midwife means “with woman” therefore this would suggest midwifery is, and should be, women centred. After all, the role of midwife evolved from the needs of women, not the needs of obstetricians.
Undertaking the Person Centred Care in Practice module in Summer 2014 allowed me to explore women centred care within midwifery through different lenses and it also coincided with my first anniversary in the role of Supervisor of Midwives (SoM) encouraging reflections on the ‘person centredness’ of supervision.
Exploring models and frameworks used in nursing care introduced me to new ways of seeing. I chose to use the assignment opportunity to explore some aspects of my thoughts and feelings as a newly qualified SoM. I found it somewhat cathartic and the process helped highlight issues I personally had with this additional role.
Using the concepts of health assets, emotional labour, co-production and Nolan’s (2006) Senses Framework I chose to focus my reflections on relationships within midwifery practice and specifically the relationships that come with the role of SoM and midwife supervisees.
Then, this year, after funding an independent review into midwifery regulation, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) announced it upheld the recommendations of The King’s Fund report, which suggested that the statutory midwifery supervision would no longer be part of the NMC legal framework (The King’s Fund 2015, NMC 2015). The future of supervision and the role of SoM, was, and still is, hotly debated by midwives across the country and on social media. During one discussion on Twitter I shared with the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) Director for England, Jacque Gerrard, I had written a personal reflection recently on the topic and offered her the opportunity to read it. She accepted and I e-mailed her a copy. It was then I realised Jacque was the first midwife to read the essay and I became rather nervous but I received excellent feedback and with Jacque’s encouragement I sent it off to the editor of the British Journal of Midwifery who replied, yes, they’d like to publish it. So after peer review and some minimal editing it was published in May.
I’m thrilled and really hope my article will stimulate debate about the future of supervision and highlight the emotion work involved in the SoM role and in midwifery.
As I discussed with some sociology PhD students and researchers recently at a workshop with Barbara Katz Rothman, Professor of Sociology at the City University of New York, it’s not easy putting your work out there, especially personal reflections, and possibly having to discuss and defend it. If you believe in it then just do it or as social media extols us these days #JFDI!
http://www.nmc.org.uk/standards/what-to-expect-from-a-nurse-or-midwife/how-midwives-are-regulated/how-midwifery-regulation-works/
The King’s Fund (2015) Midwifery regulation in the United Kingdom. The King’s Fund, London
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