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A review of midwifery leadership

Manchester coroner Lisa Hashmi identified ‘poor midwifery leadership and staffing levels as well as ambiguities in the Trust's guidelines’ (Gray, 2016) as key factors in the death of a newborn baby...

When daily midwifery practice makes headlines

On Wednesday 27 September, at the stroke of midnight, BBC News in Suffolk posted its next story online (BBC News, 2017). Hardly ideal timing, one might think, except that this was a story about a...

Mind your language

Certain words raise my hackles almost automatically One example is people referring to ‘nurses’ providing maternity care As I have shouted at the television and radio many times, no they don't! After...

Pre-surgery pregnancy status

In 2010, a national newspaper reported that the National Patient Safety Agency database recorded three women who lost their babies following surgery, saying that,

Not enough ‘safe care’ for maternity service users, warns NHS England

The chair of the Maternity Transformation Programme in England has warned that not enough is being done to ensure safety within maternity services Speaking at the NHS England Health and Care...

Learning through reflection

An essential element of continual, evolving midwifery is the need for midwives to critically reflect on their practice in order to inform and improve care for childbearing women Reflection involves...

Active blended learning for clinical skills acquisition: innovation to meet professional expectations

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC)'s draft framework for nursing and midwifery education states that a programme of study will only be approved if ‘students are empowered and provided with the...

Volunteering trip to Sierra Leone

In October 2016, I and three other midwives visited Freetown and some of its surrounding districts in Sierra Leone We were volunteering for the charity, Life for African Mothers (LFAM), a charity...

Preparing for Birth: Colouring your Pregnancy Journey

The book featured in this month's review is unusual, but highly topical, given the growing numbers of colouring books for adults that have hit the shelves in recent years. Preparing for Birth:...

The WOMAN trial

Postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) is the leading cause of maternal death worldwide, with approximately 100 000 deaths per year (World Health Organization, 2013) PPH is also a leading cause of maternal...

Awards as motivational tools

Nominations for midwifery awards are upon us, and I frequently meet previous winners and nominees who remember with pride how their achievements were recognised Will you consider nominating a...

The new ‘normal’

For a language with a wider vocabulary than any other, it can be surprising when English fails to aptly communicate an intended meaning. This has certainly been the case this month, where one small...

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