Sue Macdonald and Julia Magill-Cuerden authors of the famous Mayes' Midwifery: A Textbook for Midwives are in the SMNET house!!!! Yaaaayyyyyyyy!

These fabulous women have replied to all of your questions and comments..... come meet them below (they are so0o0o0o0o0o0o0 lovely and have enormous clever super midwifery brains!).

Tesni: WOW so starstruck! How lucky are we?

Tesni I think we are also feeling very lucky – great to be working with a super group of authors and to be providing a resource that can help students (and midwives) get as much information and tools with which to do the most fab job in the world that is a great.

Josie: I knowwwwwwwwww!!! WHOOP!
I have a great Mayes’ story - when I was in Law I used to carry my copy of Mayes everywhere with me for a sneaky read - now everyone who has Mayes knows it's great for muscle building as well as learning - as it’s BIG! I was reading it on the train on my way home from work and the then Head of Midwifery at the local Uni was sat by me (I had no idea!) and she introduced herself to me as she saw the book and we chatted about midwifery all the way home!

That is a great story Josie, It is good to know that you carry the book around with you and this is a way of people getting to know you are interested in midwifery. It is a heavy book but not as heavy as the last edition and I hope you have managed by now to look on the website to see what is on offer for learning on the EVOLVE website. You will need to use your unique code for access. Some chapters offer a lot of extra material than can be helpful and you may find post reading a chapter to test your leaning you can use the MCQ bank. This can be used as many times as you wish for updating your learning. The other point that your story brings out is that I think you need to be careful when you are working in healthcare such as midwifery, as the professional books are meant for that audience only. On trains and buses and even in waiting rooms many people look over what their neighbour is reading. One really needs to be aware that you are reading only that which can be read by others without being offensive or causing harm. Some of the diagrams and even the text may be explicit and intimate and may not be appropriate for a lay audience especially younger people without modification or explanation.

Binky: Wow! I don't have a copy yet but will be watching with interest.

Hello Binky. The only problem with not owning your own copy that you do not have access to the additional material on the EVOLVE website. It would be good to get feedback from other students to see how they view this so that the next edition can develop this even further… Though this edition is pretty hot off the press.. soon it will be time to start the next edition!
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Wozza: I have a copy after falling in love with it on the taster course in the Uni library! Even caught my husband having a sneaky read!

Thank you Wozza. We hope that all students will find it very useful. Using this as a main reference text supported by specific topic books and new journal articles is a great way to learn. Many midwives find the book useful when they qualify too so that they can keep themselves refreshed and up to date. We know that student midwives’ families are such an important source of help during the course, and often feel at the end as though they too have finished the course! Sadly no degrees for our long suffering families.. just ever grateful thanks. Same for us when we were busy writing and editing!

Jamboree: Amazing!!! Really SMNET, you are spoiling us! I have loved these interviews so far and found them really insightful. Off to think of some good questions now!

It really is so nice to be able to talk to such a great group of committed students ! Waiting for the questions

Tesni: I don't know enough to know what I don't know (if you know what I mean?) so I always read the clever questions of others in a slightly envious way and then avidly read the answers - can't wait!

Understand really well..but sometimes its great to just get and ask that question..and sometimes the cleverest are the simplest..and the hardest to answer!

Ashlee: Wow Josie this is situations I just dream about! Then I wake up Can't wait to see what they say I love mine Xx

Josie: What was your motivation to write Mayes? Was it daunting thinking about covering almost everything and anything?! If you could create one policy for maternity services what would it be?

The motivation was the each of us was asked to be editor. Sue was the editor for the 13th edition, and then was joined by Julia. It is amazing to be writing the textbook that we used ourselves as students! And that bit is daunting, and a bit special. Of course the main difficulty is that we would both like to include EVERYTHING, including all of the research and evidence, and maybe summaries of reports etc, but if we did the book was be pretty enormous. So we were glad to be able to extend into the web…which gives a lot of future potential. We both would really value peoples opinions and feedback on the web material, as we both feel that this gives huge potential for the future, and provides additional; tools and materials for our readers. Really good question…One policy for maternity services..can we be greedy and say something like to ensure that women and their families are assured of one to one care during pregnancy, childbirth and the postnatal period, with a model offering a high degree of continuity for women (and midwives)

Lacrimosus: Should we begin to use more inclusive terms when regarding midwives? Petty or polite?

I recently read about how the term police is now considered impolite, and began to notice university prospectuses and professional text books suggesting "a midwife is.. she should be.. her role is.." etc.

When talking about a midwife who ‘should..’ one is really indicating aspect of what a midwife does and not really giving the name ‘midwife’ a title. Using the term ‘midwife should’ gives guidance in policies and duties or even aspects of the midwives role.

Using the term ‘hotfuzz for a police woman is giving an alternative title to police woman and in its way is rather a slang or even derogatory way in which to refer to her.

Not quite sure if this answers your question..so if not..would be happy to return to this one. We are both incredibly proud to be midwives.

Wozza: What do you think about the new e-readers such as Kindle? Do you feel textbooks can be used efficiently in this way? Is this the future for text books?

The new e-readers could be a great asset to learning especially if you can book mark areas in the book. They seem to be a useful way to access text books and build up your own library. Having said that there is nothing like having a text book to refer to when you can turn pages over and browse easily and also to cross reference chapters. Easier in a book than a hand held device. There are so many books and reports that it is difficult to store them all and an electronic device could be handy for storage but the current readers do not enable printing I suspect.

However they do not enable access to questions and interactive learning and that is another area where technology could be developed for personal use and maybe is already accessible. Much may depend on the personal style of learning. Though I could see personal readers being developed as a hand held source book for using whilst working as a reference whilst talking to women and this could enable midwives to share information with women at the bedside.

There is so much material available that having a personal ready reference would be so much easier than having to use the ward shared terminal.

So we think the future holds a mixture, and means that students and midwives will have better access to materials in a whole range of tools.

Tesni: What has been the most interesting/innovative/startling amendment or update you have had to include?

When to stop really is a decision made at the beginning. First of all we had to decide what was necessary for the current student midwife to learn and what was essential to know to practice as a midwife in contemporary practice. We were also circumscribed by the guidelines given to us with the Publishers about the total numbers of chapters and words.

When beginning we did not really have a blank sheet as we were building on the last edition. We also had to be aware of the purpose and aims of the textbook and how it is recognised in midwifery.

In this edition the word length had to be reduced by 25% as the book was becoming too big and heavy and so we were able to use a website ‘EVOLVE’ to develop more resources for each chapter. Thus each chapter should now be more succinct and have the essential elements. The website does contain some sections with extensive extra material.

We also worked with the authors and with them decided what should go into each chapter.

The most stimulating aspect for me was recognising that in the maternity services we see women from all over the world and therefore a text that recognised the multicultural issues and the global role of the midwife in caring for women in any part of the world was essential for future practice (Julia). I would find it difficult to choose one aspect – we are both exposed to quite a few innovations on our current roles, but I guess what I enjoy seeing is more explicit leadership by midwives in much of the research and innovative practice within the maternity services.

Iolaus: How did you end up writing for one of the biggest midwifery textbooks? Were you approached to write or did you seek it out?

Sue was editor in the last edition. We were both approached by the publishers. This is probably based on their knowledge of potential authors and writers in midwifery, and by our knowledge of midwifery.

Iris: There is so much that midwifery encompasses, how do you decide what to include in such a comprehensive textbook and where to draw the line?

As above, we had to select what people would need, and make sure that the text was concise and clear. We were pleased to be able to have the web-site to put additional resources.

There are certain areas in midwifery, such as the processes in pregnancy, birth and the post partum period providing subjects that are essential for practice. Other subjects were included as a necessary foundation for practice including the ethics and history of midwifery. Furthermore the legislatory and policy, with social and cultural context of birth influences the how the midwife practices. Therefore, if you think of what a midwife needs to practice in today’s healthcare environmentthen those areas are the ones that framed out decision to include in the book.

MidwifeMummy: What was the most interesting topic to write about and why did you feel that? What was the best thing about writing a book like Mayes?

No hesitation in responding to this as the value of editing a book like this is to be able to read up to date information on all aspects of midwifery. We both read every chapter several times and so the excitement was in learning new information about our profession that cares for women.

The best thing is being able to share this with students and midwives so that they may use this up to date knowledge to care for women and families. It is a profession we both care so passionately with the belief that unless midwives continuously develop their knowledge and understanding they are not providing the best service to women. So best subject for Julia has to be research evidence and quality. Sue might have more difficulty in choosing…but as I wrote the learning and education chapter, accurately I loved that, but actually really enjoyed reading and editing all of them..from history to the fetal skull!

Iris: How do you decide on the guest authors (if this is the correct term), do they come to you or do you approach them?
Many of the authors of this 14th edition were authors in the 13th. edition. Previous authors had the option to write in this edition. Our aim was to approach people who had a specialist interest and shown expertise in that specific field of practise and who had previously written and published in that area showing their knowledge of the evidence for practice.

Just a thought that in writing this text it took about three years from start to finish. Approaching authors, then their writing the chapters, checking the scripts, developing website material and the multiple choice questions, and then sending it to the publishers and going through the process of editing. So there are areas, particularly those such as drugs and their uses that may already have been superseded. This is exactly like painting the Forth bridge!