Midwifery Assistant Training: Day 1

Glenn, of the Florida School of Traditional Midwifery stopped by.

Today I woke up at 5 am, got in my car and drove to St. Augustine for a midwifery assistant workshop.  I’m so excited to be here!!  The home we are using for the workshop is beautiful – right on the marsh.  The information we’re learning is exciting and very pertinent for me.  And best of all, the women I am surrounded by are incredibly talented, intelligent and have this thing about them – where you just want to be around them and never leave.  I’m really glad I decided to do this workshop now and put off The Farm workshop because the birthing community in Florida is frankly quite awesome and everything I’m learning is based on Florida statues and rules (which obviously applies directly to me and the midwife I work with).

I have homework to do tonight, and since part of it is to review what we went over today I thought I’d share some of it with you.

To start off we talked some about the history of midwifery in Florida and Florida Statute 467.  Basically, Florida midwives get their protocols from this statute so knowing how the Florida law came to pass and what it exactly says is kinda pertinent.  Next we talked about what it means to “be on call”, which I am already well versed in.  All the women at the workshop are mothers, so it was refreshing to hear how they manage being on call and mothering.

We also learned the proper technique to hand washing, and talked about the type of energy needed at births.  I was struck at the reminder that I am at a birth to not serve the family necessarily but to serve the midwife I am working for.  As a doula, that is a definite shift for me.

We briefly touched on pertinent information in a woman’s chart and medical abbreviations (of which I need to learn asap).   We practiced taking blood pressure readings (which I really need to practice) and had a brief lesson on how to make an herbal infusion for a pregnant woman.  We covered lots more information than I mentioned, but my favorite part was when I got to touch a belly and feel a sweet baby.

I felt a back, a butt and a sweet baby head way down low (baby was LOA by the way).  Every time an assistant-to-be finally felt the baby with her hands, her face would light up and would immediately make eye contact with the mom.  It was super sweet to watch.

To close our day we were told a story to help us remember why we do what we do (because as it is helpful to remind a mother in labor that she’s birthing a baby sometimes us birth workers forget why in the world we’re doing what we’re doing).  Here is the story that we heard, which is a recent facebook status of Robin Lim.

At 1 am, as a young Sumbanese woman in the slum had given birth to her second baby, on the cement floor, and no one was there to help her. My Husband, Wil & I flew to Sanur, normally a 1 to 1.5 hour trip, but at that hour with no traffic we made it in 22 minutes. We ran the traffic lights, as we were concerned for the mother and baby’s condition. There we found 24 year Rani in a pool of her own blood. Baby shivering on a wet rag, on the floor. I stopped the hemorrhage, warmed up the baby (skin to skin with his mother), cleaned Rani up and stabilized her. Helped Rani and her Baby sort out breastfeeding. Waited until Rani needed to pee and helped her, so she would not bleed out again. And then just before dawn I burned the umbilical cord, and tried to make the Mother~Baby space sacred and clean. This morning, I am tired, but full of gratitude that Rani and her Baby are alive and well. I left some hard cooked eggs for her, and drinking water. Later today I will return, wade through the rainy season mud and deep puddles, to reach Rani and check on her and the Baby.

Upon hearing this story, combined with my exhaustion factor from getting up at 5 am, it’s at that point I turned into a puddle of useless goop.

More tomorrow.

Love,