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'Being safe' in childbirth: what does it mean?

By Smythe, L
on Thursday, 01 Jun 2000 in New Zealand College of Midwives Journal - Volume: 22

Midwives know what it means to ‘be safe’ for it is within their every experience of practice. They also know what it means to be unsafe. They go home with a sick feeling, wondering if they could have done anything different to have prevented the unexpected outcome. Phenomenology, the approach of this study, suggests that we take for granted the meaning of phenomenon such as ‘being safe’ that lie at the heart of our everyday lives. We simply assume that we all understand what it means to be safe. This study looked beyond that assumption, and considered afresh ‘what does it meant to be safe?’

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Portfolios - a necessary evil?

By Stewart, S
on Thursday, 01 Jun 2000 in New Zealand College of Midwives Journal - Volume: 22

It appears that midwifery regulatory bodies, both in New Zealand and overseas, have embraced the concept of professional portfolios or profiles, to such an extent that the maintenance of a portfolio will become a requirement for sustaining midwifery competency (Nursing Council of New Zealand, 1999). What then is it that makes the New Zealand registration authority believe that a portfolio is vital for a midwife's professional development? Why do midwives appear to have the opposite opinion, and throw up their hands in horror whenever the subject of portfolios is raised? In this paper, I wish to examine these questions, and using literature and my own personal experience, endeavor to provide some answers that will prepare midwives to explore the issues further.

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Editorial: Towards a new millennium in partnership

By Guilliland, K
on Friday, 01 Oct 1999 in New Zealand College of Midwives Journal - Volume: 21

The last ten years have passed with a 'blink of the eye' but it has somehow seemed to fill a lifetime. The changes that have occurred within midwifery in New Zealand over those ten years have been so far-reaching and comprehensive that one could expect it would take a lifetime to achieve. As we all continue the journey into the next millennium we should take the opportunity and evaluate the last ten years of personal and professional midwifery practice within New Zealand. What have we achieved for women and midwifery in the childbirth arena? Have we got it right? Will we know when we have got it right? Do we understand how it happened? Does our partnership model make a difference?

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Letter to the editor re: Feminism and midwifery

By Doherty, A
on Friday, 01 Oct 1999 in New Zealand College of Midwives Journal - Volume: 21

Letter to the editor re: Embracing the Past, Understanding the Present, Creating the Future: Feminism and Midwifery, by Deborah Davies, New Zealand College of Midwives Journal, Issue 20, pages 5-10.

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Letter to the editor re: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and other alcohol related effects in New Zealand

By Mathew, S, Kitson, K, Watson, P
on Friday, 01 Oct 1999 in New Zealand College of Midwives Journal - Volume: 21

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and other Alcohol Related Effects (ARE) are birth defects seen in infants exposed to alcohol in utero. The effect of alcohol on the growing fetus follows the principle of teratology and hence is dependent on dose, time of exposure, conditions during exposure, and the genetic makeup of the mother and the child... Based on our pilot study, we are continuing with a New Zealand wide survey of midwives to assess the risk factors for FAS and other ARE in New Zealand.

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Partnership Revisited: Towards Midwifery Theory

By Pairman, S
on Friday, 01 Oct 1999 in New Zealand College of Midwives Journal - Volume: 21

Ten years ago midwives in New Zealand celebrated the formation of our own professional organisation, the New Zealand College of Midwives, and in so doing took a major step towards articulating our identity as midwives. In September of that same year the New Zealand College of Midwives launched its Journal to provide midwives with another forum for sharing knowledge and giving 'voice' to midwifery's interests. From the beginning midwives claimed 'partnership' as a central tenet in our new understanding of ourselves as a profession (Donley, 1989; Guilliland, 1989). We recognised our political partnership with women as we worked to bring about the 1990 Amendment to the Nurses Act and regain our professional autonomy. We consciously challenged traditional notions of professions as we developed a structure and constitution for the NZCOM that required consumer membership at every level. We understood, even then, that what we were doing involved a shift in power from the professional to the woman (consumer). As Karen Guilliland (1989, p.14) told us then: the only real power base we have rests with women.

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Midwifery Partnership: Individualism, Contractualism or Feminist Praxis?

By Skinner, J
on Friday, 01 Oct 1999 in New Zealand College of Midwives Journal - Volume: 21

I have looked after Moana through two pregnancies and am currently looking after her for the third time. Moana is young, Maori and poor. through her first pregnancy she was a street kid and heavily into glue and alcohol. She delivered prematurely and the baby went to relatives. The next baby was stillborn. Her third pregnancy was my first contact with her. She was off the streets but was a heavy drug and alcohol user. She was almost impossible to find: making appointments didn't work. She was morose, uncooperative and uninterested. One visit in particular I remember clearly was on a beautiful sunny morning. She was at home but so were a group of her friends. They were all drunk and stoned. I did not stay long. She delivered the next day at 32 weeks. An aunt took the baby. On my one postnatal visit to her she told me to "f... off out of my life". "Once Were Warriors" looked like a picnic.

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COMMENTARY: Midwifery Partnership: Individualism, Contractualism or Feminist Praxis?

By Benn, C
on Friday, 01 Oct 1999 in New Zealand College of Midwives Journal - Volume: 21

Commentary: It is 10 years since the establishment of the New Zealand College of Midwives as the professional body representing the interests of midwives, and six years since the Guilliland and Pairman (1994) model of partnership monograph was published. The critique of any practice, publication, model of institution is necessary if changes and growth in a profession are to be realised... Skinner's article is a critique of the partnership model (Guilliland and Pairman) and of the foundations on which it is purported to be based. In this commentary I address two main issues, the first being the validity of the critique that partnership only works if the women are "white, articulate, educated, middle class". The second issue is the opinion expressed that partnership is not a foundational principle, which underpins the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand's founding document.

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Partnership works at all levels and makes things happen!

By Editor
on Friday, 01 Oct 1999 in New Zealand College of Midwives Journal - Volume: 21

A photograph and brief explanation about the first Baby Friendly Initiative Stakeholders meeting in Wellington, 26 August 1999.

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Midwifery Partnership - A Consumer's Perspective

By Daellenbach, R
on Friday, 01 Oct 1999 in New Zealand College of Midwives Journal - Volume: 21

I agree that we need to debate the concept of 'partnership', otherwise we risk that it becomes stale and empty rhetoric. Like Joan Skinner, I recognise the difficulties some midwives and birthing women face in putting partnership into practice. I do not agree, however, that we should therefore discard the word or the principle... Skinner makes a number of arguments with respect to partnership that I would like to comment on. My approach is somewhat different to Skinner's. I start from the premise that words or concepts like 'partnership', 'contracts', patriarchy', 'feminism' and even 'midwifery' all have multiple, shifting and contextualised meanings.

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