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Avoiding midwifery burnout

This weekend I am in Cairns, presenting an Active Birth workshop. The group is lively and fun, with representatives from Cairns Base Hospital and others in the extended region.

An interesting theme emerged yesterday. We were talking about how it is often the motivated who attend these workshops, and how important it is to give those who are keen to support women through natural births a regular dose of encouragement and enthusiasm. Unless this happens there is a real chance they will burn out, get fed up with battling rigid policies in their hospitals and leave midwifery altogether. This has happened in many places and I have often had these stories related to me. Many midwives have also said to me that an Active Birth workshop was a pivotal pointing their decision to stay on and keep working for change.

One of the participants commented that it was notable that none of the core midwives at the local hospital was in the group. Many of the team midwives had made the effort to come on a precious weekend, but none of the senior midwives in the unit were present. This is a shame as the midwives in this workshop group have many issues with current policies in a number of areas and a general discussion on these topics would have been useful. Instead we have talked about how the rank and file midwives can approach their senior staff to stimulate reviews of outdated policies etc. It is hard for junior staff to approach their managers and seniors, yet it is the newer midwives, often fresh out of midwifery school, who are most up to date with current research and practice.

At the end of the day, changing a health care system is difficult, whether at a very local level or across a broader region. It is a huge beast that is slow to rouse, often affected by entrenched habits and routines and change is hard to stimulate. Midwives have the advantage of working with healthy women who are quite capable of taking an active role in their own care, and stating their own needs (if given the opportunity). I believe the best way for midwives to stay focused, satisfied and rewarded is to work one woman at a time, listening to her desires, creating her special birth place and enabling a very individual event to take place. It will be women she serves that offer the best rewards for midwives and every woman who has a natural birth has an impact on the wide health care system.

We’ll have more to explore today as we look at very practical measures for keeping birth normal.

Posted by andrea at October 21, 2007 08:12 AM