Blog

International Day of the Midwife - a day in the life with Suzie Webber

Career overview

I trained as a midwife late in my career; I was in my thirties.  I trained at Sunderland Royal Hospital and Wansbeck General Hospital. Once qualified I started my career on delivery suite at Wansbeck, but I suffered a cervical spine injury so spent a lot of time working on pregnancy assessment before leaving to be a community midwife with the Whitley Bay community Midwives. I enjoyed the community work very much, but I needed surgery for my spine injury. Whilst recovering a secondment was advertised for an antenatal clinic midwife to look after the high-risk birthing people. I felt this would be ideal for my career as I recovered as I still had some symptoms that would affect my community work. I was successful in securing the secondment, initially it was for 3 months but here I am almost 8 years later still loving the role.

I had always wanted to be a midwife for as long as I can remember. I still have my record of achievement from High School that shows even as a child I knew Midwifery was the career for me. However, life happened, marriage and children got in the way so when I was thirty-two, I went back to college as a mature student to complete HEFC A level equivalent to gain entry to a midwifery degree. I was accepted on my first application to the course and the rest is history!

Day in the life

Typically, my day changes as I cover two different antenatal clinics every day. I work in the vaginal birth after caesarean section clinic with our lovely advanced clinical practitioners and with our medical team in the raised BMI clinic along with the mental health and substance use clinic. I am responsible for the birthing people who are expecting multiple pregnancies as well as the smoking clinic where I assess baby’s growth and offer counselling on the risks of smoking in pregnancy and offer nicotine replacement and further cessation services. In all clinics I assess the birthing person’s risks by taking a medical and obstetric history to plan and organise the best care for each birthing person and their unborn. I liaise with our wonderful medical team, screening midwives, anaesthetic team, and complete referrals to our cardiac, gastro diabetes teams and the fetal medicine team.

I counsel birthing people on the risks during their pregnancies such as Low PappA, caesarean sections, vaginal birth after a caesarean section, large for dates babies, shoulder dystocia, and twin fetal medicine issues. I counsel the birthing people with multiple pregnancies about the risks of having more than one baby and map out a plan of care for the rest of the pregnancy for each individual birthing person and their unborn.

I also look after the birthing people who use or have used substances, counselling on the risks of use in pregnancy and I work alongside our safeguarding team, children’s services addictions team and our mental health services to provide a holistic plan for their pregnancies to ensure involvement from all teams to provide as much support and guidance as possible to ensure these birthing people have a healthy and successful pregnancy.

I follow up any patients who fail to attend appointments, organise emergency ultrasounds and if required refer to fetal medicine and council on mode of delivery dependant on mum or fetal needs. I consult with our screening midwives regarding Hepatitis C, chlamydia and any other conditions. I draft reports for children’s services and sometimes the courts and I consult with our toxicologist at the lab regarding results and if further screening is required. I prep requests for screening prior to clinic and complete lists with pervious screening result.

Monthly MDT (multidisciplinary team) meetings

I link with the community midwives regarding toxicology results at booking and those patients positive of any substances or any birthing person who have been under any of the addictions services will be discussed at our monthly MDT.

I look at each patient’s history of use and link with mental health services, children’s services, past obstetric history, and their own backgrounds.

• I send invites to community midwives, GP practices, children’s services, addictions services, safeguarding and obstetrics requesting any additional information if they are unable to attend.
• I prepare and send the list of patients to be discussed each month.
• Complete care plans in the meeting where notes from each service are obtained.
• Complete and distribute minutes and action plans for the MDT.
• Complete any communications and actions with children’s services, mental health teams and community midwives and any tasks at the meeting.

I then add all discharged women to audit list and upload copies of all documentation. I add a clinical note to all the patients discussed Badger Notes and copies of that month’s care plans are sent to the safeguarding team to upload to each persons Badger Notes.

Predominantly Clinical

I work clinically in the antenatal clinics alongside our medical team, our lovely advanced clinical practitioners and the other wonderful specialist midwives in diabetes, pre-term birth and the rainbow team. I work between both Wansbeck Hospital and North Tyneside Hospital Antenatal Clinics and work closely with our amazing midwifery support workers and clerical team.

At the end of the day, I like to recharge by going home to my husband and children, cooking some tasty food and have a snug with my giant cat Eric.