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Hand in hand

… hugely want me to either. But go I did.

The Sixth National Conference on Current Issues in Midwifery organised by the British Journal of Midwifery asked me ages ago to talk about 'The reality of maternal mortality: a father's perspective'.

I'd been dreading delivering the short speech - how would they react? Would I falter, would my mouth dry up?

When I started I was nervous, and …

Many returns

Tonight our long summer holidays end. We've had an amazing time, visiting Scotland and Portugal, enjoying glorious sunshine in both, but tomorrow all three of us start again at school. I go back in my working capacity in I.T., Harry returns now in Upper School and Emily joins us for her first day …

Thank you

Since the launch of Friday's Child and last weekend's coverage I have been flooded with comments, emails, letters and calls. It is so moving and rewarding to receive them all, and I may be slow but I am getting up to date with replying.

Trying to keep up makes me think that I am not giving a …

Double dose

Yesterday's extract of Friday's Child in the Daily Mail caused a huge response, which still stuns me this morning.

To everyone who has contacted me: Thank you. I am replying as fast as I can!

The extract was from my book Friday's Child which is the story of what happened back then. Today …

Misconception that matters

… I got home I started reading it. It was an article from Times2 last week, Save the independent midwife, along with a personal tale, right at the end in the on-line version, written by a mother, Alex O'Connell, who had had a horrific first delivery, and had opted for a home birth the next time, assisted by an independent midwife.

I finished reading it on-line and something jumped out at …

Childbed fever: the facts

… fever is rare, but is still a threat to mothers

Childbed fever is feared by every GP and midwife who has ever seen it

Septicaemia accounts for 14% of direct causes of maternal death 1

Up to 30% of us may carry a bacterium that can cause it

Septicaemia can develop very rapidly

Septicaemia can usually be treated quickly and effectively if detected early enough

Most …

NICE delivery?

… pick up on the warning signs of a complication such as infection than by regular observations by a midwife?

But on that subject, all too often I hear that regular postpartum observations are no longer routine, unless infection is suspected - indeed the NICE guideline on Routine postnatal care of women and their babies [PDF] even says as much for some reason.

This is madness: how on …

An Inspector Calls

I had a visit from the VAT Inspector this morning. I got a bit behind with my VAT Returns and they wanted to make sure I wasn't up to no good.

Business has been slow to non existant for the past few years, so it didn't take long and we soon started to talk about what I was doing now. I showed …

Virtual Jessica

… examined by countless student midwives.

She is a computer based training package, created by two midwifery lecturers from Swansea University, Susanne Darra and Marian Mclvor.

The project has just won an award at the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) sixth Annual Awards Ceremony, and there is a plan to roll Jessica out to other universities.

It is a genius project, and although Jessica Tate's …

Maternity resources

… say.

How can the government keep saying that they are working towards having a named midwife for every mother, when the number of midwives is so low? 36 midwives per 1,000 births are required, yet the average is only 31 and it is as low as 26 per 1,000 in some NHS Trusts.

If the birthrate continues to rise (whether caused by immigration or not) then maternity services are going …