Presentation Information

We want Midwives to be informed of their essential role in the survival and rebuilding of communities who face disasters. Globally the surface temperature is increasing. As our Oceans warm, storms are getting bigger, and more frequent. Drought, heat waves, cyclones, unpredictable precipitation and snow, famine, strife, plus earthquakes (fueled by Global Warming, the Earth’s crust is on the move). Today on Earth there are five times as many disasters as there were in the 1970s. According to the World Meteorological Organization Statement on the Status of Global Climate in 2015: "The warming trend and an increasing number of disasters are expected to continue for several decades.”

Experience bringing Midwife-to-Mother care to parts of the planet devastated by disaster has taught me that traumatized communities NEED their midwives. When people suddenly are left homeless, hungry and thirsty, when hospitals and health centers are razed and roads impassible, pregnant women must still have their babies. In addition, Globally, it is the midwives who are trusted as the first go-to medics, when a child is hurt or an elder is ill. In the Samatiga area of Aceh there were 154 midwives before the 9.3 earthquake and tsunami in 2004. Afterwards, there were 32 midwives left alive. These women, also homeless, grieving their dead, without food, water, light or medicines, were the first to respond to the sorrow, suffering and trauma of the people. Attending this session has the potential to help Midwives be more prepared for their role, should disasters continue to strike.

In the past 21 years of providing support to breastfeeding mothers requiring medication I have found that many women are given information which isn’t based on evidence. Sharing decision-making is about being honest about the limits of knowledge and not just about healthcare professionals avoiding risk. To make an informed decision mothers need an unbiased explanation of options with benefits and risks about what is known about the medicine and its passage into breastmilk. Interrupting breastfeeding to take medication also has risks and we cannot ignore the difficulties that pumping and dumping, produce for the mother. I aim to provide the tools to evaluate the risks and benefits of prescribing and taking medication during breastfeeding and to discuss some of the more commonly encountered conditions where treatment is necessary to maintain a mother if full health to nurture and care for her baby.

Professional ethics teaches us how to navigate the challenges of defining and upholding our boundaries to protect our clients, ourselves and our profession. Competency and scope of practice evolve as we build our professional skills and acquire relevant experience. Knowledge of bioethical principles, moral dilemmas and codes of ethics are essential (what we need to know). Virtue ethics (why we need to know) and fluid practice with ethical thinking (how we practice) are key to applying ethical thought to practice to uphold the midwifery model of care. The Midwives Ecological Model of Ethical Thinking (MEMET) illustrates the complexity of real-life ethical dilemmas in midwifery practice.

Women know that it deeply matters how they give birth to their children. The birth profoundly affects the child’s life and how a mother mother’s her child as well as a mother’s own deep sense of herself. Each birth also profoundly affects the midwife who has cared for a woman and her baby. This class is for both birth givers and their midwives. If you are experiencing the effects of a difficult, disappointing or traumatic birth, either as a woman who has given birth or as a midwife , you are invited to join this class. This class will describe the elements of a difficult disappointing or traumatic birth as a basis for understanding what is involved in healing from such a birth. It will also provide an emotionally safe, non-judgmental space for you as a participant do some restorative and empowering work.

I will consider aspects of midwifery important to every woman and her baby, every father/parent, no matter where they live, and no matter what their circumstances. We will consider worlds within worlds, starting with the baby as the whole world, moving to worlds of midwifery and current influences, worlds of women, worlds of health care and health care politics, worlds of science and publication. I will end with our achievements and how they might be extended to support reproductive rights, humanized maternity care and the best start in life, for all.

Join Debra to talk about sexuality and the hormonal physiology of childbirth creating comfort, pleasure and pain relief. It’s time to honor; sexuality, creativity, music, movement, song and love in childbirth. Ask yourself “have our childbirth practices gone too far is making birth a day to endure rather than a transformative, joyful, life affirming process? If you want to offer yourself and your clients more joy, pleasure and power – this workshop will offer you the science, techniques, and inspiration to make subtle changes that will increase your clients power, passion and create transformative, powerful, birth experiences.

Midwives are making great strides in their efforts to renormalize and promote physiologic birth. As a key component of the fourth stage of birth and a critical moment in the formation of the mother-baby relationship, physiologic breastfeeding initiation should be considered a keystone of midwifery care. Despite the importance of early breastfeeding on maternal-child health and the vital role maternity care providers play in successful initiation, there is limited evidence regarding the effectiveness of various clinical approaches to supporting breastfeeding in the immediate postpartum. In this talk, Robyn Schafer, CNM, MSN, RN, EdM, IBCLC, reviews historical approaches to breastfeeding initiation and presents the available evidence on the efficacy of various methods. She also discusses contemporary philosophies and presents the model of physiologic breastfeeding initiation. In conclusion, she provides recommendations for clinical practice to support mothers and babies in this essential process.

This presentation will describe the cultural significance as well as the physiological functions of the Placenta, and the difference between early and late clamping and cutting of infants’ umbilical cords. Robin Lim will discuss the role of Midwives in advocating for the human rights of newborns, and emphasize that what Midwives do in the birthroom sets the tone for success, or failure of family relations.

Current understandings of dystocia rest on outdated definitions of active first stage of labour and its progress and on treatments with an equivocal evidence base. These include the cervical dilatation threshold for active first stage, uncertainty over whether a reduced rate of dilatation and reduced strength of uterine contractions represents pathology and the effectiveness of amniotomy and oxytocin for preventing or treating dystocia. Recommendations are made for revising the definitions of active phase of the first stage and for dystocia and for alternative, non-medical interventions that are known to shorten the length of labour.

This presentation will look at current recommendations for skin to skin contact from UNICEF and WHO and explore why current modern systems do not support implementation in practice. I will look at the barriers and the drivers, and tell my own story of change. I will also discuss the phenomenon of social media and how sharing good practice through this medium connects maternity workers with women of the world. Also we will discuss why being a health care radical helps me to question practice and speak out for women and newborns.

There is now compelling evidence of the benefits of re-orientating maternity services to provide all women, regardless of risk, with a known caseload midwife within a supportive multidisciplinary team 1-3. The strength of evidence has created international momentum to make women’s access to continuity of midwifery care a priority (referred to as caseload midwifery). There is consistent and significant high-level policy support within Australia (e.g. National Maternity Services Plan, 2011)1 and internationally (e.g. NHS England National Maternity Review, 2016 )2 to provide caseload midwifery. However, despite the strength of evidence and policy support, the transition and re-orientation of maternity services to provide caseload midwifery care has been slow 4. A review of the literature reveals significant barriers to implementation including disinterest and misinformation about caseload midwifery within the existing midwifery workforce , poorly designed or absent implementation and support processes and inadequate leadership 5-7. This paper will outline strategies that could be implemented to support leaders developing these services, and importantly strategies that could support the emotional wellbeing of midwives transitioning to and working in caseload midwifery models.

Until the early decades of the 20th century the time following childbirth was known as the ‘lying-in’ time in North America. This was a specified time and space wherein mothers were supported to be with their newborns without household or social responsibilities. The lying-in was the domain of women and was protected by midwives. While versions of lying-in have been practiced historically in societies around the world, today the observance of a protected time and space following childbirth has all but disappeared within the biomedical model of maternity care in Western societies. We now describe the time following birth as ‘the postpartum’, a medical term which has served to relegate this time to secondary status after the birth. Ironically and poignantly, ‘the postpartum’, indicates not only a loss of status of the time following birth, it is now synonymous with maternal depression. This presentation will review the common historical and cross-cultural aspects of care following childbirth prior to medicalization. It will raise questions for midwifery care and research and challenge midwives to examine if our care following birth is truly ‘woman-centred’.

As Henry Ford famously said to customers wanting to buy the first Ford cars: ‘you can have any colour as long as it is black’. Informed choice is a mantra for health care in many countries. In theory, it is commonly assumed to be the optimal ethical and moral approach in maternity care, where most women are healthy, and where they are autonomous adults. However, the term ‘giving informed choice’ is problematic. This presentation will examine each of the three words in this phrase (‘giving’; ‘information’; and ‘choice’) to unpack the meaning and implications of each. It will then discuss whether the notion of informed choice can truly benefit women and babies when, in many countries, the choices are limited, or only between alternatives that are not evidence based and that might even be harmful . The presentation will conclude with possible solutions and ways forward in relation to this issue.