Changing places

The boys are really fulfilling their description of ‘identical’ twins. Today Jamie was discharged from hospital……….and Louis was admitted. Poor old daughter had about half an hour when she thought she would be coming home, then the Docs saw Louis and she was destined to stay in hospital. There was some good news, Louis has been passed perfect, his ‘occult spina bifida’ is nothing to worry about, other than a slight risk of infection, and his heart murmur has disappeared! When the ‘team’ were doing their rounds they were accompanied by 2 medical students, apparently the boys were a big hit as they could compare the breathing, lung sounds between identical babies, excellent teaching material. Later the students returned and spent an hour examining them in detail an taking a comprehensive history of the whole family.

Other than feeling as if an angry horse has kicked me the stomach I am well but still steering clear of eating anything more than toast. I had Amy again today, we are becoming quite the odd couple, chattering away and playing Amy’s favourite game, invisible pets. She has an extremely active imagination, which can sometimes cause problems. I’m not always sure what we are playing with, as it’s invisible, and Amy’s speech can be difficult to understand. I really hadn’t anticipated that a lion might be coming into the kitchen to eat a baby duckling whose Mummy had gone shopping!

Back in the world of midwifery and the maternity services I found thispaper about working conditions and the quality of care, it was published in 1999 and what struck me was that nothing has changed, in fact the situation has worsened. There were sections which really jolted me as it was reading what I have blogged on lots of occassions, the piecemeal approach to implementing change, the reliance on staff goodwill, the essential downgrading of midwives etc. It is long, 72 pages, but well written and researched, every maternity unit in the UK was asked to contribute, 50% did. Any student who is commenting on ‘Changing Childbirth’, and the constraints affecting the success of achieving the targets, will certainly find a great deal to discuss in this paper.