My Midwives UK (2025)

20/05/2022

What. The. F**k.

I’ve just quickly fact checked this with some of our local community midwives and yep, out of pocket to deliver the community care that is fundamental to the job.

So we have…
👉🏻 a student crisis where students are getting thousands of pounds in debt to train to become midwives
👉🏻 a midwife deficit crisis where there just simply aren’t enough midwives to provide safe care levels
👉🏻 a bullying crisis within midwifery
👉🏻 a crisis of polarisation where midwives are lambasted by the media and the government for doing their jobs
👉🏻 and the icing on the cake, we’re making the midwives who are bearing the brunt of ALL of that PAY to work during a fu***ng cost of living crisis where all costs including fuel have exploded!

Now, tell me again how a Tory government supports the NHS? 🤔

Unions - get your fingers out and ACT

Government - 🖕🏻

Women, birthing people, expectant families - add your voices to petitions, tell your MPs your concerns, make some noise…cos if the 57% of midwives who are considering leaving midwifery in the next 12 months DO leave it’s going to be yours and your baby’s health at risk.

23/11/2021

Love this 💕

07/10/2021

We’re holding the baby loss project to help to truly visualise the number of babies that die each year in the UK.

So far we have received names, dates of birth and nicknames of over 500 babies that will be applied to a single vest, each signifying a baby who has died.

We hope by holding this project it will enable families to acknowledge their baby but also improve awareness for those who have less knowledge and understanding of baby loss.

The project is being recorded on the last week of October and we are welcoming additions of babies until 20th October 2021.

Each vest will be laid on a football filled and filmed by drone and photographed to create this incredible visual.

If you’d like your baby including in the project please visit the link here https://www.beyondbea.co.uk/our-shop/ #!/Baby-Vest-Project/p/394775543

10/08/2021

The best birth selfie we have ever taken 💕
Last week we welcomed our beautiful Éna.
Her birth was slightly different than we had planned, and it’s a perfect example that an empowering birth isn’t just about having a homebirth with twinkly lights, it’s about receiving compassionate care and being informed of your choices and having them respected.
Birth story to follow 💕
With love,
S, G & É

22/07/2021

“What do you both do when you are not on call? “
Well, we spend 50% of our year caseloading providing independent midwifery care (outside of the NHS) for families, many have homebirths under our care and whilst we specialise in supporting physiological birth at home, we have many clients who also opt for just antenatal/postnatal care.
We spend the other 50% of our time working in our local hospitals, this means we keep up our skills in complex care and stay up to date with the more obstetric side of maternity care.
Things you may not know about us:
- We have been on call midwives for 4 years (wow how time flies!)
-We have completed our Midwifery Masters degree, both focusing our research in racial disparities in maternity care. We will be progressing this research to doctoral level (PHD).
We facilitate cultural safety training at various universities and NHS trusts across the U.K. We work as PMA’s to present the current literature/research base and work with governance frameworks to make care safer for families from Black, Asian and Ethnically diverse groups.
We regularly guest lecture at various universities to share our expertise of supporting physiological birth or caseloading.
We are both trained in the use of complementary therapies in pregnancy and labour.
Georgia is under taking her lactation consultancy course and she’s nearly finished 🥰
Georgia is becoming a fully trained acupuncturist and will be insured for pre conception, pregnancy, intrapartum and postnatal period.
We are both specialist perinatal mental health midwives.
We are qualified in performing the Newborn Infant Physical Examination, also known as the NIPE- this was previously done by doctors but midwives can become trained too 🤓
We are both prescribing midwives and are able to prescribe medication that is within our scope of practice for those within our care. (This is one of the hardest qualifications we have obtained so far! 😅
We are professional midwifery advocates and provide educational training and support for midwives across the North West.
Is there anything else you want to know about us? 🤓🤓
With love,
S&G
👩🏽‍⚕️👩🏻‍⚕️

20/07/2021

F**kadoodledandy it’s hot 🥵

🦶 Feet in cool water. Be prepared for the pets of the house to drink the foot water.
💧 Wet towel in the freezer then over you (swap frequently!). Careful not to put it on the spilt peas and questionable orange goo.
🍦 Ice lolly and ice creams - as many as your freezer will stock! Calories don’t count when they cool you down!
🌬 Place your fan in front of a bowl of iced water to make a nice cool breeze. If you don’t own a fan, insist on any available person to waft a palm leaf at you.
🧊 Ice pack on pulse points. If no ice packs, frozen spinach will suffice (let’s face it, we’re not going to eat it)
🐩 Rest on a pet cooling mat.

17/07/2021

Caring for your newborn in the heat

Ahhh we love the warm weather, it feels like summer is finally here! However, there are some important factors to be aware of when looking after your bundle of joy on these summer days.
Infants under 6 months of age should be kept out of direct sunlight, where possible find shaded areas to sit in.

Breastmilk is all you need –Fully breastfed babies do not need any water until they've started eating solid foods..

Your baby may feed more frequently; this is perfectly normal.
Newborn babies under six months don’t need any other fluids than their usual milk, however they may be slightly ‘fussier’ during feeds, or may cluster feed and want less milk more frequently (feeds should still total the normal amount over a 24 hour period). Bottle fed babies may want to feed more frequently i.e drinking 2oz every 2 hours as opposed to 4oz every 4 hours.
Do not cover your pram with a blanket or muslin cloth, this reduces air circulation within the pram and leads to heat being trapped under the blanket and will lead to baby getting warmer and can lead to over heating.
The Lullaby Trust advises parents to:
-Close the blinds or curtains during the day to stop the room your baby sleeps in from getting too hot
-Put a fan in the bedroom to help circulate the air, but make sure it is out of reach and not pointed directly at your baby
-Ensure that the room your baby is sleeping in is not too hot, an ideal temperature is between 16°C and 20°C. Use a thermometer to ensure the room is an ambient and safe temperature prior to bedtime.
-Reduce layers; just a nappy with no bedding is fine in hot weather. Do not over heat baby with multiple layers of clothing!

Following are some signs and symptoms of heat-related illness in a baby:
* Looks unwell and is more irritable than usual
* Pale and clammy skin
* Sleepy and floppy
* Fewer wet nappies
* Dark-coloured urine
* Soft spot on baby’s head (fontanelle) appears sunken in.
Enjoy the sun ☀️
With love,
S&G
👩🏽‍⚕️👩🏻‍⚕️

08/07/2021

Did you know your butt crack can tell you how dilated your cervix is?

Although vaginal examinations remain the standard measure for cervical dilation for many, However, there's statistical inaccuracies recorded of between 51.4 and 81% Wowwee!

Enter - your butt crack. Oh god, delete that sentence, delete, delete! 🙈

Ahem. This is where your purple line might help.

In 76% of women in childbirth a purple line (or possibly red or white on dark skin) appears, rising up as cervical dilation increases. Women who go into spontaneous labour and more likely to have it appear, which gives us yet another mystery into the workings of birthing peoples' bodes. It's hypothesised that it's due to vasocongestion at the base of the sacrum.

The visibility of the purple line can give an alternative to vaginal examinations which can be intrusive to a labouring woman.

Did you also know your butt crack is also known by bum crack, bum cleavage, a**l cleavage, a**l cleft and most properly the intergluteal cleft? You can thank me when you get that as a pub quiz question.

Read the research here: https://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2393-10-54

08/07/2021

After our last post, we’ve had so many people reach out to us to say they really resonated with us sharing our personal experience.
Social media often only shows the best side of life and pregnancy, whilst pregnancy is an absolutely incredible event, for many it can be a really difficult time too.
We need to break down the stigma of discussing difficulties faced in pregnancy. You are not a bad mum or ungrateful if you have not enjoyed your pregnancy, the pressure on people to be happy all the time during pregnancy can be suffocating.
Sometimes, we compare our story to the stories we see online, and it’s easy to feel shame and isolated if you feel that your pregnancy isn’t everything you’d always hoped and dreamed it would be.
You are not alone, please reach out for support. Speak to your midwife/GP, your partner, your friends and family.
Georgia has been an angel on earth for me during this pregnancy and I couldn’t have gotten through it without her. Battling hyperemesis took a toll on my mental health and stress triggered off threatened pre term labour. Make sure you reach out for support, whilst it can be scary, without support, I know I wouldn’t have been able to cope.
Let us know if you want to hear more about living with hyperemesis or our first hand experience of dealing with mental health difficulties during pregnancy.

With love,
S&G
👩🏽‍⚕️👩🏻‍⚕️

04/07/2021

My name is Sheridan, I am 36 weeks pregnant I’m a midwife and I’m currently one of the people who NICE would recommend has induction of labour at 39 weeks.
I am at a 3 fold increased risk of dying during or just after my pregnancy.
But I will tell you one thing.
My blackness is not something to be “fixed”with induction.
It’s not me, or people like me, that is the issue here.
The new draft NICE guideline offering induction of labour at 39 weeks to ALL Black and Brown women and birthing people regardless, of if they have a healthy pregnancy, as a response to the increased mortality and morbidity rates amongst Black and Brown families and their babies.

It took me a while to summon up the emotional capacity to create a response to the NICE draft guideline. I’ve had a difficult pregnancy, I have experienced first hand the racism of our maternity system, I have been made to feel that my body is faulty, I have been ignored, my pain invalidated, my concerns not escalated. There have been scary times, and dark times.
This recommendation is another blow. It is harmful, racist, and calls for zero accountability for the root cause of the racial disparities to be addressed. There is no evidence base for this recommendation, the statistics are a result of systemic racism; and to offer such a serious intervention based on skin colour has the potential to widen the gap between people of different ethnicities and in all honesty has a vibe that is very similar to eugenics, it’s a very damaging and dangerous slope.
We have until the 6th of July to respond to the recommendations. Do it.
I can speak from my postgraduate research and from personal experience that it’s not the physiology of Black or Brown people that is the risk… it is the system that is meant to care for us that puts our bodies at risk.
Black and Brown people’s bodies are not broken.

So no thank you, I don’t want your routine induction at 39 weeks because I am not broken.
Please head over to the amazing to hear her speak on this. Or to or for more information about why the guideline is problematic (to say the least).

01/07/2021

Vaginal bleeding following birth is known as lochia
🩸The lochia is a combination of mucous, tissue and blood that your womb sheds as it replaces its lining after you’ve given birth .
🩸Bleeding typically lasts around for 24 to 36 days but up to 6 weeks, however, some people notice their bleeding stops sooner than this.
🩸You may notice that during breastfeeding you experience cramps and a slight increase in lochia- this is due to the oxytocin that your body releases during feeding.
🩸Any sort of gentle exercise may cause lochia to become heavier, listen to your body and make sure you take it easy. This is especially true in the first two weeks.
🩸Blood pools when you lay down, and so bleeding may be heaviest in the morning.
🩸Abnormal or heavy bleeding between 24 hours and 12 weeks after giving birth may be a sign of a secondary postpartum haemorrhage
‼️Symptoms include‼️
* Pain in your pelvis or lower abdomen that are not after-pains (period-type pains as your womb contracts back into shape).
* Feeling shaky, feverish, and generally ill.
* Having lochia with an offensive smell.
* Heavier than expected bleeding, or bleeding that becomes heavier rather than lighter over time.
* High or low temperature
If you experience any of the above ensure you seek immediate medical attention.

With love,
S&G
👩🏽‍⚕️👩🏻‍⚕️ x

26/06/2021

June’s full moon was a Strawberry Moon and was the first official full moon of the summer 🌕
We made sure the cars were stocked up on all the necessary birth equipment just in case 🥰
There always seems to be a flurry or birthing activity around a full moon, there’s no official scientific evidence as to why this is, but there’s always been a historical link between fertility and the lunar cycles, what do you think is the reason for this? 🤔
With love
S&G
👩🏽‍⚕️👩🏻‍⚕️

My Midwives UK

20/05/2022

23/11/2021

07/10/2021

10/08/2021

22/07/2021

20/07/2021

17/07/2021

08/07/2021

08/07/2021

04/07/2021

01/07/2021

26/06/2021

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