One Mother, One Midwife

I really like the one mother one midwife idea but have one question, when would the midwife ever take a holiday?

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I think it would be ok for the midwife to take a holiday, its in her right to!

Generally speaking the holiday would only be for a few weeks at the most (at one time) so whoever she is caring for could have another midwife for those few weeks, and it would not really effect the system that much! At least the woman is getting much better continuity of care with 1-2 midwives rather than however many they see in the current situation.

It sounds like a great idea in principal. Having the same midwife throughout and the continuity of care this would provide the mother would be fantastic, but I'd like to know what would happen should the same midwife be requested too many times which would mean she is unable to provide care for all those mothers who want her?

Say if a community practice has three midwives, and one of then is amazing, and the other two are not too good with the 'personal and social' side of things (ie. they are too abrupt and not 'caring' enough), this could mean that the amazing midwife is requested too much and therefore cannot say yes to all mothers who request her. Where does that leave the mothers?

I realise this is hypothetical, but you never know?!

I love the idea of only having to deal with 1 or 2 midwives. I had a nurse/midwife present with a scan that showed the baby had died, she was also present at the following pg and remembered me (I think because of my accent!) She was there for all 3 early scans I had and was so heart broken when the last scan showed the baby had died as well just after the previous scan. It made me feel not so alone, like someone else had shared in my journey (besides hubby).
I am with a recurrent mc clinic now and will have a main midwife watch over me through out the pg next time. Along with a few other midwives helping out, and I'm glad I am getting more continuity in my care. Also studies have shown that women with more continuity care that have problems have an 80% chance of going full term, where women who have recurrent mc's that dont have this care have a 50% chance of going full term! So I am all for it. And like Tasha, it also helps not having to repeat my history over and over again. I almost feel like they can't be bothered to take the time to read my notes and this applies to the docs as well.

I'm reading up on One Mother, One Midwife at the moment and went to post a thread on it and found this one. I have loads of questions on it!

Does anyone know what is happening with this campaign? It just seems to 'be there' but nothing is progressing? Is it simply a case of waiting for government funding (like that will ever happen..)? How likely is it that this will actually happen?

Someone has already asked another question I was thinking, what if one midwife is very popular and others are not so you have an uneven workload? I suppose it gives the unpopular midwives an incentive to improve practise where possible..

It's all really interesting and the idea is exciting. Wouldn't it be great if it was the norm for one midwife to care for you throughout pregnancy and post-natally?

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Also - I presume it would be voluntary to change to this new system, I wonder if it would ever become enforced? During the transition would women be given the choice between one midwife or a team of midwives? I imagine most would choose one midwife so what happens to the 'old style' community midwives and hospital midwives. Hmm so much thought behind this.

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I think it's a fantastic idea, in my last pg we opted for a home birth and from day 1 to Health visitor pass over we didn't see the same midwife twice including the birth, and as I had had previous problems including serious placental bleeds going over my history each app and trying to remember everything that needed to be told aswell as trying to care for 3 other children made each appointment stressful.
I think the previous remark about 3 midwives 1 being awesome, the others not so much would not really be an issue as each person is individual and would find the midwife right for her may not be the same as someone else's (that's what I like to think anyway)

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Ready? I was born ready!!

Wow this sounds like a brilliant idea, if it comes into place i might have to have another baby just to test it out lol !

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Uni of cumbria student midwife 2010, fingers crossed !

I had 2 "slightly complicated" pregnancies ( wouldn't call them high risk) and I saw many midwives and doctors, I only remember 1 midwife and that was because I almost ripped her arm off when she stood in for my husband who had nipped out for a short pee break (or a new arm) during labour.

I think it's nice to see the same community midwife as often as possible but I really couldn't have cared less who was there at the labour stage.

It would be a bit of a nightmare to implement though, the idea is nice but it's probably not very practical.

On the FAQ section of the site, there is a link to email them to ask questions.. So would be interesting if those of you who have questions about it emailed them and then posted up the answers they give back?!

x

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