Maternal Matters

05/03/2026

🤍NHS homebirth teams🤍

💫Needed some fun after all this heavy midwife shizzle

🤍NHS home birth teams are a post-code lottery
🤍Bit occasionally you get lucky 🍀 😝
🤍We keep on 🙌⚡️💫📣
🤍Maybe one day each trust will have a HB team

Like ➡️ 💙NHS HB team goals ⚡️⚡️⚡️🙌

The cutest home birth team ever ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Home team! They’re not new to this ❤️‍🩹 Scrubs:

04/03/2026

The 4th trimester 🧠👶

As a community midwife I spend a lot of time reassuring parents of normal newborn behaviors, often parents think they are doing things WRONG.

Your baby isn’t “needy.” Their nervous system is immature and they’re adjusting from womb ➡️ world.

Inside the womb:
🤍 Constant movement
🤍Constantly fed
🤍 Steady white noise
🤍 Warmth + zero separation

Outside the womb: bright lights, silence, space, hunger cues they’ve never felt before.

Common + normal newborn behaviors:
• Cluster feeding 🤱🏼
• Contact naps only 😴
• Startle reflex
• Crying when put down
•Crying with digestion gripes
•Crying when trying to 💩
• Wanting to be held 24/7

This isn’t manipulation — it’s biology, but it isn’t easy

Tips to survive: & how to support them 🤍
✨ Use babywearing to mimic womb closeness
✨ Try white noise + swaddling (when safe)
✨ Focus on rest + nourishment for YOU
✨ Keep your world small and slow
✨ Ask for support early

The goal of the 4th trimester isn’t independence. It’s regulation + attachment 🤍

Support their transition now, and security follows, sometimes we look to try and FIX everything, and believe there’s pathological reasons for their behaviors.
Reading about the fourth trimester whilst pregnant can help you prepare, and feel more confident.

What tips would you have for new parents reading this?
⬇️⬇️⬇️ Tell them in the comments

03/03/2026

02/03/2026

📣Student midwives 📣

⚡️Protest 🪧🙌📣

📣Tomorrow meeting to start at 4pm
📣Parliament square
📣Make some noise to support
📣Please tag and share 🙏




📣Are you going? Tell me in the comments

⚡️So proud of these students ❤️
Abigail ###

01/03/2026

🖤Save the midwife🖤

🆘I’ll die on this HILL 🫥📣

📸I adore this image, taken in 2022 midwife march in Manchester ❤️🐝Me and my two wonderful colleagues
&
(My midwifery sister)

💔Hopeless hallelujah describes this situation perfectly
🖤Two things can exist at once
💔You can love midwifery but also want to leave
🖤Thinking of all you amazing midwives that make small and big differences every day.
💔If you have left it’s because you care so much not because you have lost that “sparkle”✨✨✨

❤️There’s no other profession like it 🆘🙏✨💫
Follow ⬇️
Sharing joy

SUPPORT ⬇️⬇️⬇️ sign petitions




March 📣🪧🪧🪧with student midwives ⬇️

Tuesday 3rd March 4pm parliament square London

❤️Abigail ###

28/02/2026

🆘The interim maternity services enquiry findings are damning. Families failed. Staff stretched. Unsafe systems normalised. This is happening inside our NHS.

☄️And we cannot keep calling this “pressure.” It’s political choice.

❤️I want to feel optimistic, but really my heart is broken for my profession, Maybe im naïve to think something could come of this? But optimism without action is just complacency.

😡Where are our unions? Where is the noise? Where is the protection for students and staff who are burning out before they even qualify? If this report doesn’t trigger collective action, what will? ✊🏽

📣Students are marching 3rd March, 4pm at Parliament Square. Show up. Be loud. Demand better. 🪧🔥

Safe maternity care isn’t optional. It’s political.

25/02/2026

“Well behaved women seldom make history.”

As midwives, we are conditioned from day one — as students — to be the good girls.
Compliant. Quiet. Hard-working. Self-sacrificing.
Never say no. Never question. Never push back.

And look where that’s got us ❌🆘🫣🛟

Burnt out. Underpaid. Understaffed.
Expected to carry unsafe workloads with a smile.
Told to “be resilient” instead of being respected.

This conditioning needs to end. Now. 🚨

We cannot keep pouring from empty cups while being done over again and again.
We deserve safe staffing. Fair pay. Professional respect.

Being “well behaved” hasn’t protected our profession.
Speaking up will

That’s why I’m standing in solidarity and supporting the protest in London: So proud of these student midwives

⬇️
TEAM
(founder)

📍 Parliament Square
🗓 3/3/26
⏰ 4pm

If not now, when?
If not us, who? ✊🏽

Like, comment, tag share, show your support 🙌

Will you be there? Drop me a 🙌 if you are planning! Oh and I need a lift from MCR 🤣

Abigail 🙏❤️⚡️

23/02/2026

📣Student midwives Demo📣

Organized by

She’s appearing on this morning 🙌

The question is will support her?

📣March, protest, Demo it’s their turn to shout about

⬇️
⚡️The lack of jobs for newly qualified midwives
⚡️The fact they pay to train and work full
⚡️No apprenticeships or bursaries
⚡️Filling gaps for the shortage of midwives
⚡️Often working with no breaks like midwives
⚡️Accumulated debt of tens of thousands

Show your support
✨Tune into women’s hour today
✨Tag ask for support
✨📣Go to their protest London 🪧
✨Follow like, comment, tag, share her posts!
✨Tell your student midwives & tag them and societies

Thank-you for your support, have a beautiful day

Abigail 🤍💫⚡️

21/02/2026

💙Uk ward based midwives💙

Lately I struggle to find words for the current situation we are in as midwives, I couldn’t imagine back then that things could get worse.

💙I recorded this in September 2022
💙Just before I resigned from this trust and the NHS

I had just started Instagram and I didn’t post this at the time, because it’s long I’m exhausted and I probably wasn’t making much sense, because I’d worked almost 10 hours without a proper break, but I was GRATEFUL I managed to eat something. I was paid for 7.5 hours.

💙This wasn’t a rare occurrence it happens every single day to uk midwives working LONGER than 10 hours this was a “SHORT” shift! As we call them!
💙This was 4 years ago things have got much worse
💙What has changed is that we are in the media everyday.
💙Student midwives struggling to secure jobs
💙I’ve personally tried to always remain hopeful that change will come, but it’s emotionally draining, lately I’ve found myself disengaging to protect myself.
💙Meanwhile I huge respect for those still fighting for change and raising awareness and I’ll always support you all! ⬇️









💙I’d love to know your thoughts ⬇️⬇️⬇️

🤍Abigail

16/02/2026

✨ “How does that make you feel?” ✨

I ask women this all the time.

Not because I Lack the knowledge
but because you do🤍I want to gain your understanding, thoughts and feelings…..

In the NHS maternity system 🏥📋 birth can become very protocol-led, risk-focused, box-ticking.
You’re told what’s happening.
What’s next.
What you “should” do.

And slowly… you stop checking in with yourself.

So I pause and ask:
💭 How does that make you feel?

When you’re told you “need” an induction.
When baby is labelled “too big” or “too small.”
When a scan causes worry, vague result’s
When an intervention is suggested either good reason
When you leave an appointment feeling unsettled.

Because your mind & body knows. 🌿
Sometimes you have to dig deep feel uncomfortable ⚡️
Your intuition matters. ✨
Your sense of safety changes birth. 🤰🏽💛

That question brings you back to you.

I BELIEVE in YOU ⚡️⚡️⚡️

And that’s where real power lives. 🔥

Can you relate? Has a HCP said that to you before?