Update the first
Where have I been? Placement, actually. 2 weeks of catching babies in a rural hospital. Highlights included:
- 7 births in two weeks
- One 25 minute birth
- Being there for women who had had no continuity of care throughout their pregnancy
- Having a baby (middle) named after me
- Going from "tandem" births to "independent"
- Getting glowing feedback from my supervisors and encouragements to come back for a job at the end
Some of the lowlights were pretty low - widespread use of lots of pethidine in labour, , lots and lots of sterile sheets used under birthing women (which are promptly covered in bodily fluids of course!), CTGs at the drop of a hat and for every - or no - reason, a hospital where no woman reaches term / has a spontaneous labour and birth, seen examples of induction at ?36 weeks, and the insistence on
a lot of disinfectant on the vagina prior to crowning. There was also a 50% ish reluctance to accept direct-entry midwives as competent professionals, and people were dead against me being on placement without already being a nurse.
I wonder whether this happens in the USA, or in NZ, or Canada.
Am nearly finished first year. I am weary - study is hard going, life gets in the way of me doing things when they should be done, and I really need to do today what I can do today, rather than putting it of til tomorrow, because tomorrow I may be called to a birth, or something else.
I still ask - Do I just co-operate and graduate? Do I try to ask questions about the "why" behind things? How do I not offend people I work beside by even asking this question??? Is it offensive for me to question it, or do people welcome my new and naive questions?
