Category / Nursing & Midwifery

Breastfeeding research presented in Cornwall

Congratulations to Alison Taylor, senior lecturer in midwifery who presented preliminary findings of her PhD as keynote speaker last month at the Cornwall  Real Baby Milk conference.  Alison’s presentation ‘Women’s Breastfeeding Experiences – shared using video diaries’ was very well received.  Alison’s fieldwork has been supported by the Iolanthe Midwifery Trust , she received the first Tricia Anderson award in 2008. Founded in 1983, the Trust supports midwives and student midwives to undertake further education and to carry out projects designed to improve the care of mothers and babies.

More details on the conference can be found at:

http://realbabymilk.org/couldnt-make-real-baby-milk-cornwall-conference-last-month/

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health (CMMPH)

Thinking Futures: Talking about academic quilting

On 5th November Jenny Hall, Senior Midwifery Lecturer, presented at an event organised for the ‘Thinking Futures’ festival for the University of Bristol. http://www.bristol.ac.uk/fssl/festival/
The festival was an eleven day series of lectures to share and celebrate research from the Faculty of Social science and Law and had sponsorship from the ESRC Festival of social science. The sponsorship meant that it was open to the public and therefore anyone could turn up.
The day was called ‘Patchwork, quilting and keeping it all going’ and arranged by inspirational Management academic and quilt researcher Ann Rippin http://annjrippin.wordpress.com/ Ann placed in social and historical context the study of quilting and the history of quilters, identifying the lack of research around this significant social activity. Harriett Shortt from the business school at UWE Bristol shared how she had developed a quilt as a response to her PhD studies.
http://harrietshortt.wordpress.com/ Jenny also talked about the process of reflexivity in her EdD study around developing her quilt as well as the creation of ‘text quilts’. The audience included researchers as well as members of the public active in stitching. Overall it was a day that stimulated a lot of discussion around the use of creative craft in life as well as research and highlighted the need for more work around quilters to be carried out.

Examination of the Newborn (EXON) Pilot Project for under-graduate student midwives: an update.

In November last year I published a blog on the first pilot project I undertook with five under-graduate pre-registration midwifery students which was designed to enable them to qualify with the skills and competencies around examination of the newborn (EXON). The students were required to access and study the module with post-graduate midwives. Four of the students successfully completed the course in September 2014 with one student leaving early on in the project due to unforeseen family circumstances. The journey to completion was not smooth. The first hurdle was a clash of assessments. The EXON assessment (a presentation) fell in the same week as Complex Care (CC), a third year unit assessment where students are required to undergo a VIVA and manage two obstetric emergencies. It is a stressful experience and therefore three of the students requested an extension to their EXON presentation with only one choosing to present with her post-registration colleagues. As the EXON assessment took place on the Monday of that particular week and Complex Care assessments were running over three days, the student managed to negotiate to undertake her CC assessment on the Friday. The three students were re-scheduled to present later in the year with a number of other midwives who were on extensions or resits.  One of the advantages of choosing to present in January 2014 was that the student was able to choose a topic that she could use both for her learning around EXON and for her extended essay which was due to be completed somewhat later in the academic year. The student was successful in both endeavours as were all the others but at a later date.

Another hurdle students found themselves confronted with, was a lack of opportunity to undertake newborn examinations including a shortage of midwifery mentors who could support the training requirements of the project. Two of the students could not get any of the examinations done in their own trusts. Fortunately for them, the maternity unit and midwifery staff at Poole NHS Trust Hospital were extremely obliging and supported the students to work there which enabled them to complete the practical newborn checks. All four of the students have successfully qualified as midwives and have obtained midwifery posts in the local area. They remain committed EXON and have volunteered to be EXON ‘champions’ within their respective trusts. I am grateful to Jeanette Elliot, Luzie Schroter, Jenna Penhale and Bex Coleman-Moss for their hard work and dedication during the pilot and for their feedback and advice for the next intake.

Demand for places for the second pilot project remained high when the call was put out a short while ago. Unfortunately due to some of the barriers described above it was only feasible to recruit five students again and all of them based in the west. The students have commenced their studies and are enjoying the learning so far. The pilot projects are helping to inform what impact these barriers will have on the training needs for midwifery students within our local maternity units as this year we are introducing EXON theory to all midwifery students on our newly validated curriculum with the caveat that students will obtain the necessary theoretical knowledge but not all with qualify with the required skills. However by ‘fast-tracking’ students onto one of our twice yearly CPD EXON modules which has around 20+ midwives enrolled, by the time the students reach their third year there should be many more midwives qualified in EXON and in place to support our under-graduate students to gain the competencies around newborn examination.  If you require any further information please contact Luisa Cescutti-Butler on lcbutler@bournemouth.ac.uk    

 

Congratulations to PhD student Rachel Arnold

HSC postgraduate student Rachel Arnold just had the first paper from her research in Afghanistan accepted by the scientific journal BJOG.  Her paper analyses the culture of a Kabul maternity hospital to understand its impact on the care of perinatal women and their babies.    A heavy workload, too many complicated cases and poor staff organisation lead to a low quality of maternity care. Cultural values, social and family pressures influenced the motivation and priorities of healthcare providers.

The centrality of the family and family obligations in Afghan society has emerged as a major theme. Another theme is the struggle for survival – as health care providers work to support their families, to maintain the power that they have, and to survive within a hospital system where fear rather than compassion appears to drive and motivate.  Rachel presented some of the key issues at the 2013 GLOW conference in Birmingham.   Rachel is supervised by Professors Immy Holloway, Kath Ryan (LaTrobe University, Australia) and Edwin van Teijlingen.

Rachel’s paper Understanding ‘Afghan healthcare providers: a qualitative study of the culture of care in a Kabul maternity hospital’ can be found here.  The paper is Gold Open Access.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

HSC research at RCM Conference this week

Research from staff in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) was well represented at this week’s Royal College of Midwives Conference (RCM). The RCM Conference 2014 held in the International Centre Telford explore the theme Better Births: United in Excellence. At this midwifery conference HSC Dr. Sue Way chaired a session on ‘Perineal Care and the Management of the Second Stage’

Dana Colbourne, Postgradute student at Bournemouth University and midwife at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust presented a poster with the title ‘PhD student Leading the way – A case study of a student midwife led postnatal clinic’.

Dr Stella Rawson, senior lecturer in midwifery presented her poster ‘Listening to Women: Exploring women’s experiences of being part of a student midwife’s caseload’.

Jan Stoziek, senior lecturer in midwifery and also Prof Doc student at the University of Portsmouth presented her poster ‘Mother’s Experience of Breastfeeding after Breast Cancer’.

Lesley Milne also presented a poster on the work around ‘Staff perspectives of barriers to women accessing birthing services in Nepal: A qualitative study’  with Prof. Padam Simkhada, HSC Visiting Faculty Ms. Jillian Ireland, Prof. Vanora Hundley & Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen,

Hello from Jenny Hall: Senior lecturer in midwifery

I have been invited to introduce myself as a new member of HSC, having joined at the start of September. I am part of the midwifery team and based on the Portsmouth campus, though seem to have been in Bournemouth quite regularly! I have recently left UWE in Bristol, and have also worked in the north and east, so I am completing the four points of the compass here now in Bournemouth. I have been in education in midwifery and the NHS for many years and so come with a certain amount of experience, and passion of developing midwives of the future. My research, education and scholarly interests are in holistic care and spirituality in relation to childbirth; the art of midwifery; promoting normality of pregnancy and birth; dignity and humanised care and the use of arts-based methodologies. As I am aware these cross over various established groups and I hope therefore to be able to meet many of you as I connect in. Thank you for the warm welcome I have received and I look forward to continuing to developing relationships and projects.

Congratulations to PhD student Carol Richardson on getting a paper in The Practising Midwife

 

CMMPH PhD student Carol Richardson just had a paper accepted by the editor of The Practising Midwife.  Carol is a Bournemouth University clinical academic doctoral midwife based in Portsmouth.  She is part of a scheme jointly funded by BU and Portsmouth Hospital NHS trust (PHT).

Carol is also a Supervisor of Midwives, and her first paper ‘Chasing time for reflection’ relates to midwifery supervision.

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health
Bournemouth University

First issue Journal of Asian Midwives

CMMPH would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the newly established Journal of Asian Midwives on publishing its first issue.  Journal of Asian Midwives (JAM) is the first regional online midwifery journal launched by the South Asian Midwifery Alliance (SAMA).   Prof. Rafat Jan based in Pakistan at Aga Khan University’s School of Nursing and Midwifery is the lead editor.  JAM aims to give a voice to midwives, nurses-midwives, women’s health clinicians, and reproductive health professionals as well as social scientists.

CMMPH proudly announces that one of our Bournemouth University PhD students, Ms. Sheetal Sharma, is on the new journal’s Associate Board.  Sheetal’s research is on maternity care in Nepal.

The journal is Open Access and free.  JAM does not charge subscription fees so it is free for readers nor does it charge a submission fee so it is also free for authors!  The journal can be found at: http://ecommons.aku.edu/jam/

 

Edwin van Teijlingen & Vanora Hundley

CMMPH

Congratulations to BU Visiting Faculty on latest publication

Congratulations to Bournemouth University’s Visiting Faculty Dr. Bibha Simkhada and Prof. Padam Simkhada for the paper on financial barriers to the uptake of antenatal care in a rural community in Nepal.1   The first author (a native Nepali-speaker) conducted 50 face-to-face interviews with women and their families in rural Nepal.  These interviews were thematically analysed after transcription.

This latest paper adds to our knowledge into user costs related to maternity services in Nepal as we had already published our findings on users costs in the largest obstetric hospital in the capital. 2

 

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

  1. Simkhada, B., van Teijlingen, E.R., Porter, M., Simkhada, P. & Wasti, S.P. (2014) Why do costs act as a barrier in maternity care for some, but not all women? A qualitative study in rural Nepal International Journal of Social Economics 41 (8), 705-713

 

  1. Simkhada, P.P., van Teijlingen, E., Sharma, G., Simkhada, B., Townend, J. (2012) User costs and informal payments for care in the largest maternity hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, Health Science Journal 6(2): 317-334.  www.hsj.gr/volume6/issue2/6212.pdf

 

Fusion Investment Fund: Millennium Development Goal Fusion of Ideas Update!

Back in February, Bournemouth University hosted an international conference thanks to the Fusion Investment Fund awarded to Vanora Hundley, Edwin van Teijingen, and Zoë Sheppard. It brought together clinicians, academics, policy makers, students, and other stakeholders to help set the future global midwifery agenda post the Millennium Development Goals.

A smaller follow-up meeting took place in June. The two days were spent discussing arising research ideas from the conference and collaborative funding opportunities to take forward. These networking events have indeed led to a number of outcomes including important local, national, and international links; collaborative publications in progress; a potential research programme; increased media coverage for the University; and the showcasing of students’ work thereby fusing research, education, policy and practice. These important outcomes will help ensure that midwifery continues to be on the global political agenda and raise the international profile of the University.