Working in Lumsden, a rural maternity unit

For the last 18 months, as well as teaching at Otago Polytechnic I have also been working as a midwife in a lovely wee rural maternity centre in Northern Southland. It is a lovely part of the world. Lumsden itself is a junction town but the surrounding countryside is lovely. The community here are mainly involved in farming and rural service industries. As dairying has expanded in this area the ethnicity of the childbearing population has changed too with quite a number of asian dairy farm workers. A number of women from the Kingston and Queenstown areas also birth here and these are often professional women or women involved in the tourist industry.
I have really enjoyed working here and would recommend it as a place where midwives can practice midwifery care autonomously in a supportive small team of experienced rural midwives. It takes time to find new staff in an area such as this and I am hoping that a midwife may see this and think this would be a good place to work. If you want to know more they have a website which tells you a bit about the facility. They also have a page on facebook where you could communicate with them. If you have any questions about working here I would be happy to try to answer them.

Midwifery Students learning palpation

Those who read this blog will know that I am lecturer at Otago Polytechnic School of Midwifery. I mostly work with students in the first year of the three year direct entry degree programme. On the Wednesday the 16th of March 2011 our students are going to be learning about abdominal palpation. We need women from the community to be available to help our students with this learning. We need women who are pregnant and are 30 weeks or more gestation. This will be the first time most students have ever had the opportunity to feel a baby during pregnancy and to listen to a babies heart beat. It is very exciting for them and this is usually exciting for the women who come forward and offer to help our students learn this technique.
We have students based in the lower North Island in Whangarei, Palmerston North and throughout the Wellington area. We have students in Central Otago, Southland and throughout Dunedin.
If you are pregnant and feel that you would be able to help us with this please contact Carolyn McIntosh, freephone 0800800583. If I do not answer leave full details on my answerphone and I will get back to you. BTW we do offer a small gift of a book token to women who agree to help us in this way, it is not much but it is a wee something to say thank you.