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Professionalism: The importance of consumer control over childbirth

By Donley, J.
on Friday, 01 Sep 1989 in New Zealand College of Midwives Journal - Volume: 1

[Please note: A letter to the editor regarding this article is published in Issue 2] Last year, 1988, was a momentous one for New Zealand midwives. After decades of dragging the chain, we finally broke free and formed our own 'professional' organisation - the New Zealand College of Midwives - in order to speak for ourselves and improve the status of midwives. Just what does professionalism really mean? Further, what should it mean to midwives on the threshold of the 21st century? It is generally acdepted that a profession has a specialised body of knowledge, standardised training and has developed its own standards and code of ethics. These things we have achieved. Further attributes of a profession are it is self-defined and self regulated and legally recognised. These are yet to be achieved - hence the College. While we have defined ourselves according to the WHO definition of a midwife, e.g. as an independent practitioner, legally we are defined as 'obstetric nurses' i.e. as handmaidens to the doctor and are required to work under medical supervision. Casually, we are referred to as 'midwives' and are even licensed as such, e.g. R.M., but this is a relic of the days when we had some autonomy, i.e. prior to the Nruses Act, 1971. Regaining our autonomy is one of the first projects our new College is working on.

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To my dear sisters in New Zealand

By Flint, C.
on Friday, 01 Sep 1989 in New Zealand College of Midwives Journal - Volume: 1

Until the day I die one of the great highlights of my life will always be the wonderful week I spent with the midwives of New Zealand in August 1988 - a time when I was acutely conscious of history being made and brave decisions being taken. The time when the midwives of New Zealand decided to form their own College of Midwives and break from the Nurses Association. A frightening decision, one surrounded by doubts and a wish to be able to see into the future to check out that it was the right decision and not one taken in a moment of madness and impulse. ... Women at this time probably more than at any other in the whole history of womenkind need midwives more than ever before. Why am I suggesting this? I am suggesting this because women in 1989 are at lower obstetric risk than they have ever been and yet they are being subjected to greater and greater levels of intervention.

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Attempting to involve consumers in midwifery policy development: A paper presented at the National Midwifery Conference, Auckland, August 1988

By Bickley, J.
on Friday, 01 Sep 1989 in New Zealand College of Midwives Journal - Volume: 1

This paper is aimed at describing an exercise that the NZ Nurses'Association Ad Hoc Committee on Maternal and Infant Policy went through to try and collect consumer views about midwives and the services provided by them. Those views were expected to help shape the resulting policy document. As a starting point, I want to reflect for a moment on the term 'consumer'. To me, the word presupposes a passivity, an object to which something is done: the end result of the process of production. It fits easily into the capitalist model of production and reproduction, and in so doing accounts for the commodification of those people who use the health services during the process of childbirth i.e. those who pay for a service. At this point it is not necessary or useful to develop that model to illustrate how the commodification of birth is designed to increase the profits of the health care providers (i.e. obstetricians). Others have done that. What is relevant is the consideration of their term consumer and its development, paradoxically, into 'health activism'.

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Maintaining the links: A history of the formation of the NZCOM

By Guilliland, K.
on Friday, 01 Sep 1989 in New Zealand College of Midwives Journal - Volume: 1

Midwives in New Zealand have come to acknowledge the pivotal role the consumer plays in the protection of their profession. In the following discussion, I hope to outline for you how New Zealand midwives have come to this realisation and how women as consumers of the service have made it possible. Medical domination over maternity health services has been part of New Zealand's history. As in other western societies, hospitalisation, sedation and infection redefined birth outcomes and shaped today's "management" of the pregnant woman. This lead to maternity services, provided "clinical material", and kept medical monopoly on childbirth. The move from small cottage hospitals into large city hospitals was therefore a response to the health professional's needs - not to women's needs. Women became segregated into antenatal, intranatal and postnatal components; therefore reducing the midwives ability to provide total continuity of care.

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Nihil Sine Labor

By Taylor, D.E.C.
on Friday, 01 Sep 1989 in New Zealand College of Midwives Journal - Volume: 1

Congratulations and best wishes to the midwives of New Zealand for having the courage and initiative to form their own professional body. I have been asked to share with you a few memories of my Midwifery Training during World War II in England and I deem it an honour and privilege to contribute in some small way to this first edition of the Journal - along with my two daughters. I was trained in General Nursing in a North of England hospital but chose a London Training School of Midwifery for my six months Part 1 course. The Hospital functioned in two places - part had been evacuated to a large Stately Home about 40 miles from London whilst the usual Hospital carried on with limited wards and staff. The Hospital was lucky not to be hit by bombs as many surrounding buildings had been demolished in the heavy air raids.

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