When I was pregnant in 2020 we were good friends with our neighbors and she was a resident OB at a nearby hospital. I was desperate for her to witness my birth so she could get her eyes on untouched birth. Sadly the timing didn’t work out but I wish people in the MIC at least acknowledged these short comings in their training and in the research.
Yes! And it's pretty incredible (and truly demoralizing) how authoritatively people who have never attended a community birth will speak on what homebirth is and isn't. They actually don't know the first thing about it but love to comment on it. The paradox, of course, of operating outside of the accepted system is that I have to be well versed on their practices but they don't need to know anything or have any experience in mine (but still somehow claim they are "experts" in it).
Great writing Robina! And it is so refreshing to read this and having someone put words on why I don’t want to start my midwifery work in the hospital setting! Thanks
Hi Emilie! Yes, over the years I've thought a lot about the relative benefits and risks of starting in the MIC vs. starting in a community setting. And at different times in my life I've been more or less grateful for the volume I got in the MIC. Right now hospital midwives in NYC have been on an ongoing crusade, villifying some homebirth midwives as not being "experienced enough" to practice at home because they didn't start in a hospital practice. But volume doesn't equal experience really. What they don't realize (because they've never attended home births) is that preparation in the hospital setting doesn't always translate to what you need in the homebirth setting. I was more or less a worker bee in the MIC - lots of following direction, lots of interspersonal work, lots of trying to game a system. Totally different skill set -- and totally different end goal, in a lot of ways -- than what you use as an independent provider at home. I don't really feel like I was fully practicing midwifery there, not in a critically engaged way. I was practicing OB lite with a little more compassion.
Yes and don’t get me wrong, there are definitely important skills that can be practice way more regularly (with birthing people’s consent) in a hospital setting that will be useful for midwives practicing in primary care (at home or birthing centre). I definitely will make the most of my secondary/tertiary placement to learn and practice antenatal complications assessments, cannulation, etc.
I just worried that if I started practicing as a core midwife (hospital based midwife in Aotearoa, NZ setting) I wouldn’t be able to see the variations of normal of physiological births and therefore would have to do a lot of unlearning to then practice in the community, if that makes sense.
The OP bit was honestly hard to read because I see it all the time as a labor nurse. And I blame myself for not doing enough to rotate the baby and the doctor wants to push ASAP (on their back) and of course there’s very little descent and baby’s heart tones start looking concerning so we use a vacuum. Most of my trauma is related to OP labors and births where MD shenanigans occurred. It’s so sad
When I was pregnant in 2020 we were good friends with our neighbors and she was a resident OB at a nearby hospital. I was desperate for her to witness my birth so she could get her eyes on untouched birth. Sadly the timing didn’t work out but I wish people in the MIC at least acknowledged these short comings in their training and in the research.
Yes! And it's pretty incredible (and truly demoralizing) how authoritatively people who have never attended a community birth will speak on what homebirth is and isn't. They actually don't know the first thing about it but love to comment on it. The paradox, of course, of operating outside of the accepted system is that I have to be well versed on their practices but they don't need to know anything or have any experience in mine (but still somehow claim they are "experts" in it).
Great writing Robina! And it is so refreshing to read this and having someone put words on why I don’t want to start my midwifery work in the hospital setting! Thanks
Hi Emilie! Yes, over the years I've thought a lot about the relative benefits and risks of starting in the MIC vs. starting in a community setting. And at different times in my life I've been more or less grateful for the volume I got in the MIC. Right now hospital midwives in NYC have been on an ongoing crusade, villifying some homebirth midwives as not being "experienced enough" to practice at home because they didn't start in a hospital practice. But volume doesn't equal experience really. What they don't realize (because they've never attended home births) is that preparation in the hospital setting doesn't always translate to what you need in the homebirth setting. I was more or less a worker bee in the MIC - lots of following direction, lots of interspersonal work, lots of trying to game a system. Totally different skill set -- and totally different end goal, in a lot of ways -- than what you use as an independent provider at home. I don't really feel like I was fully practicing midwifery there, not in a critically engaged way. I was practicing OB lite with a little more compassion.
Yes and don’t get me wrong, there are definitely important skills that can be practice way more regularly (with birthing people’s consent) in a hospital setting that will be useful for midwives practicing in primary care (at home or birthing centre). I definitely will make the most of my secondary/tertiary placement to learn and practice antenatal complications assessments, cannulation, etc.
I just worried that if I started practicing as a core midwife (hospital based midwife in Aotearoa, NZ setting) I wouldn’t be able to see the variations of normal of physiological births and therefore would have to do a lot of unlearning to then practice in the community, if that makes sense.
The OP bit was honestly hard to read because I see it all the time as a labor nurse. And I blame myself for not doing enough to rotate the baby and the doctor wants to push ASAP (on their back) and of course there’s very little descent and baby’s heart tones start looking concerning so we use a vacuum. Most of my trauma is related to OP labors and births where MD shenanigans occurred. It’s so sad