May 5, 2022Today, we acknowledge the incredible impact our midwives have on the lives of women and families, as we celebrate International Day of the Midwife.
Held annually on 5 May, International Day of the Midwife (IDM) celebrates the midwife profession and recognises the integral role midwives play in listening, advocating and supporting women through pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period.
Bringing a child into the world is one of the most important times in a person’s life.
The original meaning of the word midwife is to be “with woman”, however, the role of a midwife extends much further than that. Midwives are there to support expecting mothers and their families throughout their entire pregnancy and birthing journey.
Nicole Carlon, Divisional Director of Operations – Women’s & Children’s, said, “The relationship that quickly develops between a midwife and the woman she is caring for is like nothing else.”
“The feeling you get when you see a couple become a family and they hear that first cry never wears off, nor does the feeling that you made a difference when you successfully help a mother to breastfeed,” Nicole explained.
“There is a multitude of evidence demonstrating that midwifery care results in better outcomes for women and babies worldwide,” she added.
Our Northern Health midwives are compassionate, dedicated and work to empower women during this special time. They have played a particularly important role during the pandemic to provide additional support to women during difficult times.
Lisa Cox, Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer, expressed her appreciation.
“I would like to thank all of our Northern Health midwives for a very busy and challenging past 12 months, going through the second year of a pandemic, and acknowledge they are an instrumental profession within healthcare,” she said.
“Thank you for going above and beyond to support women and your colleagues, often working above contracted hours, in unfamiliar areas, as workforce constraints were felt during internal and community COVID outbreaks and staff furlough.”
“We have so much admiration that our midwives continue to come to work each day, support women, support their colleagues and support Northern Health on a daily basis.”
Our community often send in messages of thanks to acknowledge the impact our midwives had on their birth journey.
One patient shared their feedback expressing, “We want to thank all the staff who cared so amazingly for our little boy. We were blown away by your care and support for us all. It is a challenging time and we couldn’t have done it without you all!”
In February last year, Northern Health launched a pregnancy and birthing mobile app called Eve.
Through the Eve app, the team have received many comments from patients and families thanking our dedicated midwives including, “The midwives are true angels! Thank you to everyone that helped me have our little one. I’m totally grateful to both the birthing suite and recovery team – truly amazing and wonderful.”
The career of midwifery is broad, varied, challenging and highly rewarding. We are lucky at Northern Health to have a team of very passionate midwives, who work collaboratively with the medical teams to ensure women receive the very best care.
Please see the video below:
