Midwives and Home Birth (Royaume-Uni)
Ce message est diffusé par Beverley Beech, présidente d’AIMS (Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services)
From: “Beverley Beech”
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 17:23:44 -0000
Dear All.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council has today published a circular about the midwife’s responsibilities for home birth. You can get a full copy from the Nursing and Midwifery Council web site (go to Circulars and Circular 8-2000). The following are some key statements:
Midwives are experts in normal birth and the NMC’s standards require them to be competent to support women to give birth normally in a variety of settings including in the home.
Whilst a midwife must not provide care that she is not competent to give, it is not acceptable to refuse to care for a woman on this basis and take no further action.
(So that should put a stop to those midwives who say “you cannot have a home water birth because I do not do them.”)
Research over the last couple of decades suggests that home birth is at least as safe as hospital-based birth for healthy women with normal pregnancies.
Midwives may have some anxieties if there is a clash of a woman’s choice versus the perceived risks of caring for women in a home setting. If there is a clash then the midwife must continue to give care but can seek support by discussing her anxiety with her supervisor of midwives.
It is a midwife’s duty to make all options and choices clear and to respect the choices a woman makes if she is legally competent to make that choice.
Whilst an employed midwife has a contractual duty to their employer, she also has a professional duty to provide midwifery care for women. A midwife would be professionally accountable for any decision to leave a woman in labour at home unattended, thus placing her at risk at a time when competent midwifery care is essential.
Should a conflict arise between service provision and a woman’s choice for place of birth, a midwife has a duty of care to attend her.
Women have the right to make their own decision on these issues if they are competent to do so and midwives have a duty of care to respect a woman’s choice.
Spread this around as widely as possible, I am off to have a celebratory gin and tonic.
Yours, Beverley
From: “Beverley Beech”
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 17:23:44 -0000
Dear All.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council has today published a circular about the midwife’s responsibilities for home birth. You can get a full copy from the Nursing and Midwifery Council web site (go to Circulars and Circular 8-2000). The following are some key statements:
Midwives are experts in normal birth and the NMC’s standards require them to be competent to support women to give birth normally in a variety of settings including in the home.
Whilst a midwife must not provide care that she is not competent to give, it is not acceptable to refuse to care for a woman on this basis and take no further action.
(So that should put a stop to those midwives who say “you cannot have a home water birth because I do not do them.”)
Research over the last couple of decades suggests that home birth is at least as safe as hospital-based birth for healthy women with normal pregnancies.
Midwives may have some anxieties if there is a clash of a woman’s choice versus the perceived risks of caring for women in a home setting. If there is a clash then the midwife must continue to give care but can seek support by discussing her anxiety with her supervisor of midwives.
It is a midwife’s duty to make all options and choices clear and to respect the choices a woman makes if she is legally competent to make that choice.
Whilst an employed midwife has a contractual duty to their employer, she also has a professional duty to provide midwifery care for women. A midwife would be professionally accountable for any decision to leave a woman in labour at home unattended, thus placing her at risk at a time when competent midwifery care is essential.
Should a conflict arise between service provision and a woman’s choice for place of birth, a midwife has a duty of care to attend her.
Women have the right to make their own decision on these issues if they are competent to do so and midwives have a duty of care to respect a woman’s choice.
Spread this around as widely as possible, I am off to have a celebratory gin and tonic.
Yours, Beverley