Research skills in practice

Whether in clinical or academic settings, all midwives are educators, with a responsibility to nurture student confidence in evidence-based practice and research; partnership working between practice...

The infant microbiome

Delivering compassionate care

I was invited to spend a shift on a labour ward in a semi-government/private maternity hospitals in Colombo to observe the health professionals on Monday 8 November 2021. My first impression was of a...

Critical thinking

Critical thinking is the ability to engage in purposeful self-regulatory thinking and provides the impetus for knowledge development and clinical judgment (Facione and Facione, 2008; Abrami et al,...

No is a complete sentence

Analysing parent feedback

‘Hospitals had put in restrictions to visitors, including birthing partners. These restrictions meant that overnight, unless a woman was labouring, birth partners had to go home and only one visit...

Ways of knowing

Teenage motherhood

For centuries, early childbearing and large families ensured economic independence, yet teenage pregnancy has become associated with unmarried motherhood. Historian Pat Thane states that 20% of first...

Quality improvement in action

Stakeholder analysis and engagement undertaken at the start and throughout improvement is the cement within the building bricks of any quality improvement project. It provides a way of identifying,...

Improving the culture of care

The last decade has shown that a significant proportion of absence due to ill health within the NHS is stress-related. While reports of stress and burnout in midwifery are not new (Sandall, 1997; Ball...

Learning throughout the storm

Birthing out of the system