Review of the Modern Midwives Meet-up

 

I’d like to start by saying thank you to everyone who came to our third Modern Midwives Meetup. Thank you to our amazing sponsors Elvie and Deep Freeze – I could not do this without your support. Once again, Modern Midwives and birth experts came from all over the country to listen to some amazing speakers and enjoy some food and wine.                        First up was, Tania the founder of Elvie, who spoke candidly about the development of the award winning pelvic floor trainer and focused on the research behind strengthening the pelvic floor. She (accidently) revealed some very exciting future plans and had several questions to answer at the end. We all love her ballsy campaigns to fight the stigma attached to breastfeeding in public and will continue to follow her eagerly to see what she does next. Professor Basky then captured the entire room with his thought provoking talk that really helped many of us challenge our own views. He discussed and explained true placental insufficiency, SGA and the GAP programme. Questioning ‘is being small a disease?’ The key points from his talk are highlighted below: A tick-box approach to risk assessment stigmatises too many women as being high-risk Using an app-based algorithm (calculator) will effectively deescalate risk for many women whilst increasing detection of placental dysfunction. There is no biological rationale or robust scientific data supporting the use of national charts or customisation. The use of fetal Doppler analysis has shown significant potential for improving detection of at-risk fetuses.   For more information on his talk click here   Basky also has an incredible project on the go and is currently looking to appoint a midwife clinical fellow with experience in digital maternity systems like Badgernet who would be interested in working with the RCOG/RCM for a minimum of two years. Please click here for the maternity improvement programme.   After pizzas and wine it was time for our moderated session with Natilla Henry HOM at UCLH, who is full of both wisdom and kindness. Natilla invited HOM Shereen Cameron from Kings Collage London to join her on stage. Between Shereen and Natilla a great sense of weighted support was felt by all, from students to senior midwives. They both offered solutions to feeling burnt out and brought the room together as one big team. We had such a good time and it was so refreshing to talk openly about our difficulties and share experiences. Thank you so much to everyone that came. Marie For more details, visit: https://themodernmidwife.com

 

Staff Writer