Midwives are the link between two worlds, the spiritual and the physical. They have an extremely emotive and important job to do, but these days being a
midwife also means being a lot more. They are even having to resort to clean up after the cleaners, so that newborns and their mother's do not go home with MRSA, or some other hospital superbug doing the rounds these days. This should not be the case. Gross understaffing can lead to neglect of both mother and
baby by the very people which are supposed to care for them in the first hours, especially after any form of c-section, but even more so when
general anaesthetic has been involved as this often requires specialist care.
These first hours are the most precious, where bonds for life are formed hopefully never to be broken, but because these
Midwives are being pulled in so many directions a new mother can often find herself leaving the hospital totally bewildered and vowing never to return. The midwife herself is often bogged down with a workload no one would envy, and taken away from the true vocation that she trained for and this can often make her detached and uncaring, the typical 'dragon or '
battle axe' which can overwhelm a new mother, and often leave her in tears. When compassion or empathy is removed form the picture often because of poor resources and lack of time, the job becomes just another job and not a 'calling', and midwives may just as well be on a production line.
This can happen because the midwife herself is so frustrated but it should not, the resources should already be in
place for her, as this demeaning of a new mother which can very often be verbal due to the stress the midwife is under, can and does affect the bond between
mum and her newborn, she feels like she is on a war field surrounded by battle scarred with a general who does not know exactly what he is doing.
The constant critisism can make her feel like a failure before she has even started down the road of motherhood. The government need to look at how they can fund the maternity wards in a more constructive way, so that midwives are free to do what they were actually called for in the first place, which is helping the transition of the baby into a new world from the safety of the womb, and supporting mum and baby on their new adventure together.
More summaries about the Midwife understaffing and it's effects.