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.

Taking blood pressure

One of the assessments midwives perform every day, numerous times a day is blood pressure recording. It is one of those things that we quickly gain expertise with and feel that we know very well how it should be done. Since I started teaching undergraduate midwifery students I have become aware of many aspects of my practice that are not necessarily best practice.

I gained my first midwifery qualification in 1975 at Cresswell Maternity in Dumfries. It was a separate hospital in those days but is now part of the general hospital, a common trend nowadays. I learned to take blood pressures much earlier when I was a student nurse at the old D&GRI, not this new one which opened in 1975. The claim to fame of the D&GRI is the first use of anaesthetic ether in 1846 for surgical operations.Suffice to say I had many years to get sloppy in my practice, feeling I knew very well how to take a blood pressure, before I started teaching students and had to look at this again.

I try now to take blood pressures according to best practice however I do admit to not always doing this, old habits die hard. When I was looking for learning resources for my students I came across the British Hypertensive Society. They explain the process of recording blood pressure and provide clear rationale for why it should be done this way. One of the resources on this web site is an interactive learning resource, excellent for anyone wanting to know how to take blood pressure properly or learning this skill for the first time. I recommend this highly to my students.

Here are some other learning resources related to blood pressure.
For those interested here are a couple of videos about the physiology of blood pressure and hypertension by John Campbell, a UK nursing lecturer.
Video one
And Video two

Desperately seeking women

Readers of this blog will know that I am a lecturer at Otago Polytechnic school of midwifery. Our end of year exams are about to take place and we have students sitting exams in Whiterea, near Wellington and in Dunedin. We desperately need women to role play a scenario for our students. Women who could do this for us do not need to be pregnant or even to have a baby, in fact because this is an exam we cannot have babies or children present. You would need to be available for most of the day, from 0845 through to around 1500 hrs (or 8.45am to 3pm). In Dunedin this is on Tuesday the 30th of November 2010 and in Whiterea it is on Thursday the 2nd of December 2010. Please contact me, Carolyn McIntosh through Otago Polytechnic 0800 762 786 if you think you might be able to help.

Image Life of a midwife from Sarah Stewarts photos on Flicr.com

Good intramuscular injection video

My only critical comment about this video is using the spirit swab on the injection site following the injection. This would sting. A plain gauze would be better.

Learn How to administer an intramuscular ventrogluteal injection. For more Medical Diagnosis How-To Videos & Articles, visit WonderHowTo.

Kingston Clinic: A lovely day for rural midwifery in NZ

I have had a busy few days in Lumsden. No babies born here, well not yet anyway, but plenty to do. Visiting Mums and doing some administrative tasks around the unit in Lumsden.
Lumsden is situated in Northern Southland, a little more than half way between Queenstown and Invercargill. It also is the local maternity service for women from TeAnau. So it is in the middle of one of the most scenic parts of New Zealand and it is a real privilege to work here. The local community is mostly a farming community but there are also a lot of overseas visitors a long term residents in the mix as well. Many women from Queenstown want to birth in Lumsden as it is not quite as far as Invercargill but is closer to transfer there if there is need to in labour.
To make this service more accessible to Queenstown women we have just started running an antenatal clinic in Kingston. Kingston is on the very Southern tip of Lake Wakatipu. The friendly people from the local golf club have agreed to let us use their club rooms for a clinic. I travelled up there on Friday for the first clinic day. We had three women come to this clinic so not really busy, but I think this will pick up in time.
Here is a picture of the clinic in the Golf Club at Kingston. See Lake Wakatipu and the snow capped mountains in the background.

Listed in top 50 midwife blogs

My goodness what a surprise. I received an email to say that this blog has found its way onto a list of the top 50 midwife blogs! Thank you to those who selected it for this exalted position. I am just a little bit chuffed.

You can view this list here http://onlinenursepractitionerprograms.com/2010/top-50-midwife-blogs/