Latest / UK Column Radio / Catching Babies – With Victoria Rixon, ‘The Honest Midwife’

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Catching Babies – With Victoria Rixon, ‘The Honest Midwife’ · UK Column Radio

0:06
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another UK column interview. And for
0:10
Speaker 1: those that don't know me, my name is Debbie Evans
0:14
Speaker 1: and I'm a retired State registered nurse. I was an
0:17
Speaker 1: Award Sister in the NHS and I was also a
0:20
Speaker 1: Department of Health and Social Care Government Advisor between twenty
0:25
Speaker 1: ten and twenty fifteen. And today I am delighted to
0:30
Speaker 1: be joined by two guests. Well, I've got my friends
0:33
Speaker 1: with me and great colleague Cheryl Granger with me, and
0:37
Speaker 1: I've also got Victoria Rickson, who you may know as
0:41
Speaker 1: the Honest Midwife. But before I bring them in to
0:46
Speaker 1: say hello, I just want to add, and I've been
0:48
Speaker 1: given permission to say this that between us, Cheryl, I
0:53
Speaker 1: and Victoria have eleven children between us SO football team, right,
0:59
Speaker 1: so we know a bit about babies and having babies.
1:04
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to waste any more time because
1:06
Speaker 1: we've got so much to cover and I know that
1:08
Speaker 1: we're not going to be able to cover everything, but
1:11
Speaker 1: let's get cracking. So welcome Cheryl UK colin. Thank you
1:16
Speaker 1: so much because you've been doing so much work on
1:18
Speaker 1: the pregnancy data with the MHRA and predominantly that's why
1:23
Speaker 1: you're here to speak to Victoria this afternoon. So welcome again, Cheryl.
1:27
Speaker 2: Hi everybody, Hello, Debbie, thanks for having me.
1:31
Speaker 1: And right, let's get straight to it. It's Victoria Rickson,
1:34
Speaker 1: the honest midwife who has now left the NHS and
1:39
Speaker 1: is going to tell us what life in the NHS
1:42
Speaker 1: is like. But before we do, my first question Victoria
1:45
Speaker 1: is Victoria welcome? And what is a midwife?
1:49
Speaker 3: Hi? Debbie and Cheryl, thank you so much for having me. Well,
1:53
Speaker 3: what is a midwife? Big? Big question, isn't it? But
1:57
Speaker 3: you know, I trained as a midwife at university. What
2:00
Speaker 3: I thought was a midwife when I was a mother
2:03
Speaker 3: was completely different to what I became. And I think
2:08
Speaker 3: anything goes without saying that midwives are there and there
2:11
Speaker 3: for women and their protection and their advocacy. So to
2:16
Speaker 3: be a trained skilled midwife was really an honor for me.
2:19
Speaker 3: I was very, very excited to be part of the
2:21
Speaker 3: journey and you know, to learn really the depths of
2:25
Speaker 3: what it was like to be that. You know, we
2:28
Speaker 3: all when we all say I'm a midwife, everybody always says,
2:31
Speaker 3: oh my god, I love that job. Tell me about
2:33
Speaker 3: that job. It must be wonderful and it is wonderful,
2:36
Speaker 3: but there is such another side to it. So from
2:40
Speaker 3: a women's perspective, when I needed a midwife, she was really,
2:43
Speaker 3: really there back in you know, the years when I
2:45
Speaker 3: had my children, and midwif three now is a completely
2:48
Speaker 3: different profession than it was even ten years ago.
2:52
Speaker 1: And that's what that's what I want to say too,
2:55
Speaker 1: because I went into general nursing. I'm not a midwife.
2:59
Speaker 1: I went into general for the love of the job,
3:02
Speaker 1: for the vocation, and I did a little bit of
3:05
Speaker 1: midwif three during that training and it's joyful and it's oh,
3:09
Speaker 1: it's celebratory. It was amazing. So Victoria, such an incredible job.
3:17
Speaker 1: We need midwives so desperately. Why leave?
3:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, really sad, really sad. Time. Safety, you know, that's
3:26
Speaker 3: your biggest part of your your code of conduct is
3:28
Speaker 3: to keep people safe. To make sure that you're keeping
3:31
Speaker 3: yourself safe in your practice, You're keeping up to date
3:34
Speaker 3: with all of your educational needs, learning objectives, reflection. So
3:38
Speaker 3: all of the things that I adhered to in my
3:42
Speaker 3: three year yearly validation were all you know, tickerty boo,
3:46
Speaker 3: But actually it was incredibly unsafe. You know, my last
3:50
Speaker 3: shift was with only two midwives. Three midwives. I think
3:56
Speaker 3: someone came down if I remember rightly, but it was
3:58
Speaker 3: two of us predominantly and been on and off like
4:00
Speaker 3: that for a few months and it really had started
4:02
Speaker 3: to burn me out and it was unsustainable. And I
4:06
Speaker 3: think the safety element is well known to the public.
4:09
Speaker 3: We talk about it a lot, but actually what we
4:11
Speaker 3: don't do is we don't talk about it from a
4:14
Speaker 3: midwives perspective. Women talk about it from their perspective, and
4:17
Speaker 3: that's very well documented over mainstream news and media. But actually,
4:23
Speaker 3: as a midwife, the safety element is incredibly scary. So
4:27
Speaker 3: safety lack of transparency. You know, you're not able to
4:31
Speaker 3: tell women that it's busy, You're not able to safeguard
4:35
Speaker 3: them and let them know that they might be in
4:37
Speaker 3: for ten days because we have no staff for inductions
4:39
Speaker 3: that were I think at our highest we've been about
4:42
Speaker 3: thirteen waiting inductions with a full board downstairs and labor
4:47
Speaker 3: ward and you weren't allowed to say to them with
4:48
Speaker 3: short staff. So there was a lot of transparency issues
4:51
Speaker 3: in the communication, lack of equipment, that's a common thing,
4:56
Speaker 3: lack of staffing, lack of being heard. So if you
5:01
Speaker 3: hear women come back with their voice through pals or litigation.
5:05
Speaker 3: But when do midwives really get to voice their concerns
5:09
Speaker 3: of safety, and when they do, it goes nowhere. So
5:14
Speaker 3: we all end up not answering to the monkey surveys
5:18
Speaker 3: or the staff surveys, and they send out these yearly
5:20
Speaker 3: staff surveys and every year on year you'd get less
5:24
Speaker 3: and less in maternity were apparently one of the worst
5:26
Speaker 3: uptake of figures. So it was almost like midwife just
5:31
Speaker 3: given up. We're so tired and there's no change coming.
5:35
Speaker 3: It's actually getting worse. Not to mention the increase in harm.
5:41
Speaker 3: I actually could no longer hope with the baby losses,
5:48
Speaker 3: the mummy harm, the harms to mothers. I couldn't actually
5:51
Speaker 3: sustain having to process each shift. It became a pile
5:56
Speaker 3: like a motorway pile up. Eventually that I wasn't sleeping.
6:00
Speaker 3: I was having, you know, really awful thoughts. I was
6:04
Speaker 3: worried about litigation. It was absolutely enormous, and you know,
6:08
Speaker 3: one little me against the whole system like that was
6:12
Speaker 3: just it was just overbearing and it was just too
6:14
Speaker 3: much to carry in.
6:15
Speaker 1: In the end, I went, I think there's an awful
6:17
Speaker 1: lot there to unpack. And I know that Cheryl is
6:20
Speaker 1: dying to come in and ask you a question there,
6:23
Speaker 1: but before before she does, I just want to make
6:26
Speaker 1: a comment there that you mentioned there's a lot more inductions.
6:31
Speaker 1: And back in my day in nineteen eighty three when
6:34
Speaker 1: I had my daughter, I was in for eight days
6:37
Speaker 1: and it was a normal delivery, and inductions they weren't
6:42
Speaker 1: that I didn't We didn't hear too much about them,
6:45
Speaker 1: and even less about cesarean. So we'll come back to
6:48
Speaker 1: that a little bit later on, if we may. But
6:51
Speaker 1: in the meantime, Cheryl, do you want to jump in.
6:54
Speaker 2: We mentioned when we talked before about this birthrate plus
6:59
Speaker 2: and if you look that's so it actually says it's
7:01
Speaker 2: supporting safe staffing in the maternity workforce. So there supposedly
7:06
Speaker 2: supposed to be collecting the data or producing in terms
7:09
Speaker 2: of what the staff level should be. So when you're
7:12
Speaker 2: saying when you left you had two people looking after
7:18
Speaker 2: the ladies who were in labor, how many people were
7:21
Speaker 2: you looking after at that point? And I believe there
7:23
Speaker 2: were people on the ward waiting to come to you.
7:27
Speaker 3: On my actual shift, the last shift that I went on,
7:33
Speaker 3: I actually remember getting out of the car and walking
7:36
Speaker 3: down to labor Ward, and I felt like I was
7:39
Speaker 3: shrinking as I got to the door. It was like
7:41
Speaker 3: I'm five foot seven, but I was really shrinking as
7:44
Speaker 3: I went in. I was really petrified and dressing it.
7:47
Speaker 3: And when I got in there there was a very
7:49
Speaker 3: busy board and I looked at my manager and I
7:52
Speaker 3: remember her shutting the door to do handover, and there
7:55
Speaker 3: was only three of us including her in that room.
7:59
Speaker 3: It was frightening. The cesarean sections electives were going on.
8:04
Speaker 3: Not only did you have that, you had women on
8:06
Speaker 3: the ward. So I had a lady in one room,
8:10
Speaker 3: another lady in another room, and another lady in another room.
8:12
Speaker 3: And it was myself and I was actually looking after
8:15
Speaker 3: a student that wasn't my student. She was somebody else's,
8:18
Speaker 3: but her mentor wasn't in and it just felt so
8:24
Speaker 3: it was suffocating is the word suffocating. I couldn't cope
8:30
Speaker 3: any longer. It was horrific. Triage was absolutely heaving, and
8:36
Speaker 3: not only that, it was the impending doom that any
8:39
Speaker 3: minute something was going to go wrong, and there was
8:42
Speaker 3: no lea, there was no leniency for error at that point.
8:45
Speaker 3: You know, where's the room for the error. You couldn't
8:47
Speaker 3: stretch anymore. So although we're pulling staff out of offices,
8:53
Speaker 3: which really unfair at times, they have their own deadlines
8:57
Speaker 3: to do. When they arrived to us, you know they're coming,
9:01
Speaker 3: you know, with a bit of a hostile attitude. They
9:03
Speaker 3: just don't want to be there, and a lot of
9:05
Speaker 3: them have gone out of midwif three to go into
9:08
Speaker 3: admin roles to probably escape some of it. I understand.
9:11
Speaker 3: I kind of empathize with that in a way. But
9:15
Speaker 3: by the time, you know, the shift ended that day,
9:17
Speaker 3: that was predominantly the shift that ended my career, and
9:20
Speaker 3: that had the staffing levels like that had gone on,
9:23
Speaker 3: particularly bad on labor ward for quite a few months.
9:27
Speaker 3: It was never historically that bad. The wards used to
9:30
Speaker 3: get starved of staff, and labor ward was always the
9:34
Speaker 3: acute setting. They call it like a mini A and
9:36
Speaker 3: E labor ward. It is a very acute skilled area.
9:41
Speaker 3: So predominantly the staff would then filter to labor ward,
9:45
Speaker 3: but then they had errors on the ward, so they
9:47
Speaker 3: then had to fully staff that, and it's just felt
9:49
Speaker 3: like a yo yo effect. You just felt like you
9:51
Speaker 3: could never go anywhere to be fully fully the midwife.
9:54
Speaker 3: You wanted to be.
9:56
Speaker 2: So the birth rate plus is not working, is it?
9:59
Speaker 2: Because was going to be behind what's happening even if
10:02
Speaker 2: they're given proper information, And even if the birth rate's
10:05
Speaker 2: going down, you've still got more complex births coming to
10:10
Speaker 2: the foe by what you've said, and that obviously means
10:14
Speaker 2: that that takes more of your time. You need more
10:16
Speaker 2: skilled people there. The student nurses are not learning from
10:20
Speaker 2: any normal situation. Can you tell us a little bit
10:24
Speaker 2: of it about your opinion on what I've just said.
10:28
Speaker 3: So, the birth rate plus when I actually looked into it,
10:31
Speaker 3: when it when it when we when it was very
10:33
Speaker 3: heart highlighted a lot during continuity of care, I remember
10:37
Speaker 3: thinking it didn't look very well evidence based. But I'm
10:40
Speaker 3: not the most the most, the most intelligent person when
10:46
Speaker 3: it comes to understanding evidence. I think there is a
10:48
Speaker 3: very skilled person that can fully pick apart evidence. You know,
10:51
Speaker 3: if you've got people that love research and number crunching, great,
10:54
Speaker 3: but that is not my forte. But I just remember
10:56
Speaker 3: thinking it didn't look reliable. So the birthrate plus, as
11:01
Speaker 3: you've already said, is based on your life birth. It
11:03
Speaker 3: doesn't actually equate to your women that stay for a
11:06
Speaker 3: period of time, a duration, a length of stay. So
11:09
Speaker 3: you're not even looking at that in a number sense.
11:12
Speaker 3: If you've got a birth the year before at five thousand,
11:15
Speaker 3: and the next year you've got birth at thirteen hundred,
11:18
Speaker 3: you're going by the previous year's birth to staff. But
11:20
Speaker 3: you're not then including the fact that women are actually
11:24
Speaker 3: more complicated and have longer length of stays in hospital,
11:27
Speaker 3: which is why we've got a place we have with
11:29
Speaker 3: being bedlocked. So it doesn't work, it doesn't fit.
11:33
Speaker 1: You were talking there about labor wards being as intensive
11:38
Speaker 1: as any and it absolutely is. And if you've got
11:41
Speaker 1: women in established labor, established labor, you're going to need
11:46
Speaker 1: a midwife pretty close, right, So you're saying that you've
11:51
Speaker 1: got more complicated births, less trained midwives, more students, not
11:57
Speaker 1: even those that are allocated to you. And this is
12:01
Speaker 1: actually it's a worry. It's worrying, isn't it when it's
12:04
Speaker 1: somewhere like labor ward where you need such intensive care.
12:09
Speaker 1: But I was shocked when we were speaking before prior
12:12
Speaker 1: to the interview about complex births and cesareans, and could
12:17
Speaker 1: you tell our audience what happens if a woman comes
12:21
Speaker 1: to you and says you know what, I'm going on
12:24
Speaker 1: holiday and I need to have cesarean what's your response?
12:29
Speaker 3: The hard one? Now, I would have said pre Donna
12:34
Speaker 3: Ockingdon's report that was released in twenty twenty twenty one,
12:41
Speaker 3: that I would have encouraged a woman to feel empowered
12:43
Speaker 3: to make the right decision for her and her baby
12:45
Speaker 3: based on her health as well as making it suitable
12:49
Speaker 3: for her lifestyle. I'm actually very good. I don't tend
12:53
Speaker 3: to get wrapped up in my own opinion on it.
12:58
Speaker 3: I feel that women choose the birthday want, it's already
13:00
Speaker 3: written there for them. But when you've got to a
13:04
Speaker 3: point wheres Azerian section rates are now astronomically high, to
13:10
Speaker 3: the point that we are seeing women walk around with
13:13
Speaker 3: azarian section scars on their uterus and we're thinking that's normal.
13:16
Speaker 3: That is not normal. So whilst I am a huge
13:20
Speaker 3: advocate for emergencies a is aarian section, section and labor
13:24
Speaker 3: when it's needed, I think it's a huge concern when
13:27
Speaker 3: we're allowing women to not be educated fully and understand
13:34
Speaker 3: why they've got to that place. And I think birth,
13:38
Speaker 3: when it's around time, it can be something in yourself
13:42
Speaker 3: that potentially might be that you have issues about being
13:46
Speaker 3: out of control, and women when they're pregnant often feel
13:49
Speaker 3: very vulnerable. Lots of them. They are vulnerable. They're feeling
13:53
Speaker 3: very unsure, they don't know what's coming, And it's actually
13:56
Speaker 3: sitting in your power and understanding that everything's going to
13:59
Speaker 3: be safe and everything's going to be okay, even when
14:01
Speaker 3: you don't can't see the outcome. So I worry that
14:04
Speaker 3: we're not really and fully understanding women's decision making and
14:09
Speaker 3: how they've got to that. And I think the spread
14:12
Speaker 3: of information that women can just choose as a sarean
14:15
Speaker 3: section is very and deeply concerning. You know, there's lots
14:21
Speaker 3: of reasons why babies are meant to be born vaginally,
14:23
Speaker 3: and we didn't just have a hatch on our bellies
14:26
Speaker 3: to pull a baby out. You know, you have to
14:28
Speaker 3: think about that. So I would probably say to a
14:32
Speaker 3: woman myself now knowing what I do, is I would
14:35
Speaker 3: want to work with her one on one on that
14:38
Speaker 3: just that topic alone, and that probably would cover a
14:41
Speaker 3: few sessions of confidence building and having a connection to
14:44
Speaker 3: her body. But we just don't have that.
14:46
Speaker 1: Space connections to bodies and touch. That segued very nicely
14:52
Speaker 1: actually because you know, going back very quickly to cesareans,
14:56
Speaker 1: I'm noticing with the younger generation. I'm a granny. With
15:00
Speaker 1: the younger generation, there do seem to be more cesareans
15:04
Speaker 1: are going on. And in my day, Back in my day,
15:08
Speaker 1: a cesarean would probably it would only be an emergency
15:12
Speaker 1: that we would see a cesarean, and probably they would
15:14
Speaker 1: be in for ten, ten days, two weeks they would
15:17
Speaker 1: be in hospital. And I'm seeing young mums going into
15:21
Speaker 1: hospital on a Monday, having their baby by cesarean section
15:25
Speaker 1: in the evening and being discharged the following day, which
15:31
Speaker 1: I find quite alarming. This is, you know, this is
15:34
Speaker 1: serious abdominal surgery. You're not meant to lift for quite
15:39
Speaker 1: a few weeks after abdominal surgery like that, and yet
15:42
Speaker 1: you're going to have a baby to lift and carry.
15:45
Speaker 1: So you know, it's big surgery and I think it's
15:48
Speaker 1: something that needs to be considered. But whilst I'm on
15:50
Speaker 1: that subject, I was interviewing the most amazing Jane Dean,
15:56
Speaker 1: who was a midwife trained in the nineteen sixties who
16:00
Speaker 1: use the Pinard stethoscope to listen to baby in uterus,
16:05
Speaker 1: and she was saying that why would midwives rely on
16:09
Speaker 1: machines these days when they need to touch patients, They
16:13
Speaker 1: need to speak to patients. We need that physical contact.
16:17
Speaker 1: And I know that while we were talking about this
16:20
Speaker 1: prior to this interview, you were talking about how you
16:24
Speaker 1: speak to people, how to pregnant women as they're making
16:28
Speaker 1: their choices on how their journey's going to be, and
16:33
Speaker 1: you were talking about what happens when women present with
16:37
Speaker 1: pre acclampsia. And that's another reason that I've actually invited
16:41
Speaker 1: Cheryl to join us today because I was quite alarmed
16:46
Speaker 1: to hear what kind of drugs are being used for
16:50
Speaker 1: blood pressure, and Cheryl will be able to elaborate on
16:53
Speaker 1: that more. But I was interested that you said you
16:57
Speaker 1: used a good old fashions fig momonometer and a stethoscope.
17:01
Speaker 1: Remember those big boxes in the stethoscope and the cuff
17:04
Speaker 1: that you blow up the arm and the nurse would
17:07
Speaker 1: have the stethoscope or the doctor would have the stethoscope
17:09
Speaker 1: in their ears with it on your arm. You do
17:12
Speaker 1: that for pregnant women. And the reason I found very interesting.
17:17
Speaker 1: Do you want to elaborate a little bit more about
17:19
Speaker 1: the tree are to the pre eclampsia, the blood pressure
17:22
Speaker 1: checks etc. That you have to do with pregnant women.
17:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, so obviously preeclampsia is a serious complication of pregnancy.
17:32
Speaker 3: We don't fully understand why it happens, but how mainly
17:36
Speaker 3: happens the first time mums I have seen many women,
17:40
Speaker 3: particularly before I left, there was a lady that I
17:43
Speaker 3: had it severe preaclampsy on her second pregnancy. So we
17:49
Speaker 3: have to ensure that we're looking out for those risks
17:51
Speaker 3: in women. So a lot of women that have high
17:53
Speaker 3: risk factors on aspirin. So you're looking for the signs,
17:58
Speaker 3: the vital signs, the visual disturbs, the swelling, you know,
18:01
Speaker 3: the ademetis to the ankle's handspeak, face, that sort of thing.
18:05
Speaker 3: And we have to as a midwife use touch. So
18:09
Speaker 3: whilst in nursing you might put a saxprobe on the
18:11
Speaker 3: finger or you know, and you're measuring the heart rate.
18:14
Speaker 3: As a midwife, you are taught hand on pulse. You know.
18:18
Speaker 3: You can't pick up things like topic beats or things
18:21
Speaker 3: like that through these machines. It's through touch, so we
18:25
Speaker 3: use that. We use a normal we don't use an
18:28
Speaker 3: electronic blood pressure monitoring cuff. It has to be manual,
18:32
Speaker 3: so you have to listen out for those those blood
18:35
Speaker 3: pressure readings. Takes a long time when you're a student
18:38
Speaker 3: to really understand and get and get to grips with
18:40
Speaker 3: all of that, so they're not reliable. If they're electronic,
18:44
Speaker 3: we are told that it has to be used on
18:46
Speaker 3: a manual. Strangely enough, when they're in HDU or high
18:51
Speaker 3: dependency or you know, you're we call them different wards.
18:57
Speaker 3: Any if if a woman has anything signvention to go
19:00
Speaker 3: in a room with one on one midwife and have
19:02
Speaker 3: hourly ops or fifteen hour fifteen minute obs, they use
19:06
Speaker 3: electronic from theater as peculiar, so I'm not used to that.
19:10
Speaker 3: I would take it off and put one on our
19:11
Speaker 3: arm and I'd be doing a second reading. So that
19:14
Speaker 3: was that. And then we use labitolon as a first
19:19
Speaker 3: line defense for preclampsia and nephedipine. Now, interestingly, when I
19:25
Speaker 3: was at university doing my drug module, which was in
19:30
Speaker 3: my second year, we had to do a drug calculation
19:32
Speaker 3: which was one hundred percent, and we had to do
19:36
Speaker 3: a drug presentation to the rest of the cohort and
19:39
Speaker 3: we all had to pick a drug. One drug. So
19:43
Speaker 3: in maternity you only have a list of midwives exceptionion
19:47
Speaker 3: drugs and PGD drugs, so you use a certain range
19:50
Speaker 3: so it's not hard to work around learning them because
19:55
Speaker 3: there's not as many as nursing. It's a huge generic list,
19:58
Speaker 3: isn't it for the general public, But for me tnacy
20:00
Speaker 3: and midwives it's not. There's a lot of medicines that
20:03
Speaker 3: aren't ethically trial, so they're not they can't be used
20:06
Speaker 3: on pregnant women. However, the Lobito Lool I picked at university,
20:14
Speaker 3: and I had to stand up and do this presentation
20:16
Speaker 3: to the rest of the class, and you're graded on
20:19
Speaker 3: your presentation and the evidence that you find in the background. Now,
20:23
Speaker 3: because we're all different speakers, different listeners, we might visually
20:29
Speaker 3: learn something more. I don't remember taking much from everybody
20:34
Speaker 3: else's presentation because I was quite overwhelmed with nerves that
20:39
Speaker 3: day and we had to sit and listen to I
20:42
Speaker 3: think it was about twenty people's presentations, and we all
20:46
Speaker 3: know presentations can be dull and boring and intense. So
20:50
Speaker 3: when I qualified as a midwife, I never actually really
20:54
Speaker 3: knew much about a lot of these drugs. Yes, when
20:56
Speaker 3: I was at work, I would take it off my list,
20:58
Speaker 3: and because the university put you into a strict plan
21:03
Speaker 3: of your training. You don't have a lot of time
21:06
Speaker 3: to do wider reading because you're either working on a
21:08
Speaker 3: day and then going to UNI, or you've got an
21:10
Speaker 3: exam and you've just exhausted. So do I know all
21:15
Speaker 3: the side effects of every drug? No? Do I know
21:19
Speaker 3: how to minister them yes? Do I know the route
21:22
Speaker 3: to administer them?
21:23
Speaker 1: Yes?
21:24
Speaker 3: But do I know everything about that drug and any
21:26
Speaker 3: of all of them? Absolutely not.
21:29
Speaker 2: You explain to us that the drug that you've presented
21:32
Speaker 2: as part of your course was the one that you
21:34
Speaker 2: tend to use, so that is the one that you're
21:38
Speaker 2: familiar with, not necessarily a bit bit about it, but
21:41
Speaker 2: the fact that you know something about it. And instead
21:44
Speaker 2: of having a drug module as part of your course
21:47
Speaker 2: where you learned about all the different things that are
21:49
Speaker 2: permissible in pregnancy and to weigh up the pros and
21:53
Speaker 2: cons and all the rest, you kind of stick to
21:56
Speaker 2: the one that you're familiar with, which is understandable. So
22:00
Speaker 2: if you look up labiita LOL on the BNF, it's
22:05
Speaker 2: basically saying that it's not known to be harmful except
22:10
Speaker 2: possibly in the first trimester. If lobito is used close
22:14
Speaker 2: to delivery. Infants should be monitored for signs of alpha brockades,
22:19
Speaker 2: so again with hypertension problems. So it's telling you that
22:25
Speaker 2: there can be problems, and I don't know how much
22:30
Speaker 2: importance is given to looking out for these things. And
22:33
Speaker 2: for breastfeeding, infants should be monitored as there is a
22:37
Speaker 2: risk of possible toxicity again due to the alpha blockade
22:41
Speaker 2: in addition to beta blockade that you can get with
22:43
Speaker 2: these treatments. So that's La beta a long. Apparently the
22:47
Speaker 2: Philippine is the other one that just tend to get
22:50
Speaker 2: used in pregnancy, and it's used to inhibit labor. That's
22:57
Speaker 2: one of its uses in pregnancy. And the manufactured advice
23:01
Speaker 2: is that you must avoid before week twenty, but risk
23:05
Speaker 2: to fetus should be balanced against risk of uncontrolled maternal hypertension.
23:09
Speaker 2: So it depends how qualified you are to actually work
23:13
Speaker 2: that out. And then it's a lot of pressure on
23:15
Speaker 2: yourself if you're administering these drugs to actually use the
23:19
Speaker 2: right thing. And it says use if only other treatment
23:23
Speaker 2: options are not indicated or have failed.
23:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, Cheryl, so lobitha lool. When I actually look reflect that, now,
23:32
Speaker 3: I don't ever remember looking at the full side effects.
23:35
Speaker 3: I was just trying to understand the drug more in
23:39
Speaker 3: a sense of how it's used the maternity. That's what
23:41
Speaker 3: I can remember when I look back. But actually Labitha
23:44
Speaker 3: LOL has a side effect as heart failure, and you
23:48
Speaker 3: know liver complications. Now, pre aclamsier can lead to potentially
23:54
Speaker 3: something called help syndrome, which is where your liver enzymes
23:58
Speaker 3: go off. You've got protein urine, you're very very poorly.
24:02
Speaker 3: So when you think about a drug, and I think
24:05
Speaker 3: about this now, if a woman is on the pedipine
24:08
Speaker 3: or abiita low and she has one of these problems,
24:11
Speaker 3: and now aphedipine is a calcium beta blocker, and labor
24:15
Speaker 3: needs calcium as a whole cycle to be able to labor,
24:20
Speaker 3: and that actually inhibits the cells entering the uterus to
24:25
Speaker 3: enable it to contract. So if you think you've got
24:28
Speaker 3: a preeclamtic lady's who's severely unwell, but she's on labiita
24:33
Speaker 3: loll the fedipine and we're trying to induce her. Now
24:37
Speaker 3: ne fedipine actually causes a demo edema to feed an ankles.
24:42
Speaker 3: So if I've got a lady on ephedopine on the
24:44
Speaker 3: ward and she's got no other symptoms other than protein
24:47
Speaker 3: urea and hypertension. So she's got protein in her urine
24:49
Speaker 3: and she's got raised bood pressure, and all of a
24:51
Speaker 3: sudden she develops swollen ankles. How do I know it's
24:55
Speaker 3: not the drug rather than the preeclampsia. How do you know?
24:59
Speaker 3: Like when I look back now now, I never had
25:00
Speaker 3: the chance because it was so busy to really utilize
25:04
Speaker 3: all of these collective variables to come to a safe
25:09
Speaker 3: medical diagnosis. And it is my duty as abound six
25:13
Speaker 3: to diagnose and escalate to the team and the doctor.
25:22
Speaker 3: So if you now got a woman with vaccine potentially
25:25
Speaker 3: with a vaccine injury who's now taking abisolul which increases
25:28
Speaker 3: heart failure, we're in really sticky.
25:31
Speaker 2: Waters with the hillippine. It also says the amount is
25:37
Speaker 2: too small to be harmful if you're breastfeeding, but the
25:40
Speaker 2: manufacturers advise to avoid it. So it's always it might do, it,
25:45
Speaker 2: could do. We haven't got the studies on that, et cetera.
25:48
Speaker 2: When we come to pregnancy, which has been carried out
25:52
Speaker 2: with the vaccines as well, we're not sure. And you
25:57
Speaker 2: know there's always a precaution, isn't there that it's best
26:00
Speaker 2: until you know not to actually use these things. And
26:04
Speaker 2: of course the problem that you've been telling us about
26:07
Speaker 2: is the experience that students get. So when you're learning
26:10
Speaker 2: on the job, how much are they put into an
26:14
Speaker 2: emergency situation in a lot of cases, And therefore it's
26:17
Speaker 2: very difficult to gradually get the skills that you need
26:20
Speaker 2: to actually help the pregnant woman.
26:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, the student journey now is vastly different from when
26:27
Speaker 3: I was training. When I was training, you did blocks
26:30
Speaker 3: with the same mentor in each area. I don't know
26:35
Speaker 3: what they do now because you've become so detached from
26:37
Speaker 3: it that you don't actually fully understand that they change
26:40
Speaker 3: everything so frequently. You can't keep up with the system.
26:43
Speaker 3: It's strange, you can't keep up with what's going on.
26:46
Speaker 3: So when I was a student, you know, the birth
26:49
Speaker 3: were different, You had more lower risk women them, so
26:51
Speaker 3: you were able to get your numbers. But now we're
26:54
Speaker 3: in a situation where you know students are coming in,
26:58
Speaker 3: they are a different caliber of students. Now we've lost
27:00
Speaker 3: the birsary I feel so that the attitude of students
27:04
Speaker 3: is different. I don't know if it's just the we
27:07
Speaker 3: all have different generations, perhaps, but I find some students
27:11
Speaker 3: might say, oh, that's beneath me that role, or you know,
27:14
Speaker 3: there's not a lot of respect I've seen from some
27:18
Speaker 3: of the students to their mentors, and likewise the other way.
27:22
Speaker 3: I think we're very poor at failing students if they're
27:26
Speaker 3: not coping. But I don't like fail to failure. I
27:28
Speaker 3: think it's all about communication behind any anybody not coping
27:35
Speaker 3: is something that's not been fully understood, so there's a
27:38
Speaker 3: discrepancy somewhere in someone's expectation. But for me, I think
27:43
Speaker 3: the worrying thing is when I was about five, I'd
27:46
Speaker 3: only been ABAN five, I think for about four or
27:48
Speaker 3: five months, and I got an email saying, you need
27:50
Speaker 3: to have a student now. As a BAN five, I
27:54
Speaker 3: had only been practicing in community for six months. I
28:00
Speaker 3: hadn't even been on labor ward yet, which meant that
28:02
Speaker 3: when I went to labor ward, I wouldn't be able
28:05
Speaker 3: to deliver my own babies because the student had to
28:07
Speaker 3: get them for the numbers. So if I had rotated
28:11
Speaker 3: into the hospital first and not to the community on
28:15
Speaker 3: my preceptorship program, I probably would have been robbed of
28:19
Speaker 3: all my burth. If I didn't put my hand up
28:20
Speaker 3: and say I'm not having students, I don't feel safe
28:24
Speaker 3: now to consolidate your practice. I would say it took
28:28
Speaker 3: me about four years to stop having an adrenaline stress response.
28:33
Speaker 3: When I delivered a baby, I would shake because it
28:38
Speaker 3: still felt new, and it still felt very, very worrying
28:43
Speaker 3: that you are in the hands of two people. And
28:46
Speaker 3: until you develop that art then it becomes natural because
28:50
Speaker 3: you've done so many you will never achieve that if
28:54
Speaker 3: you have a student, at least within the first few
28:56
Speaker 3: years of your journey into midwiffree. So not only were
29:01
Speaker 3: these students being trained by people who'd just come on
29:06
Speaker 3: to the register and hadn't even had an awareness of
29:08
Speaker 3: the system. They hadn't even revalidated once or it had
29:13
Speaker 3: three paychecks, you know, they had had students that they
29:16
Speaker 3: had to grade, they had to give feedback on, and
29:21
Speaker 3: it's just alarming. So I actually said no, I said
29:24
Speaker 3: I'm not doing it, and I put my foot down.
29:26
Speaker 3: Obviously it didn't go down well. But then what was
29:29
Speaker 3: concerning with the students is if students now are struggling
29:32
Speaker 3: to get their berth, and it was a bit like
29:34
Speaker 3: that back when I was training, but it's not as bad.
29:37
Speaker 3: They've got to get forty berths with placenta, and it
29:41
Speaker 3: has to be forty normal berths. So it can't be
29:44
Speaker 3: vonto or an elector or or a four steps. It
29:48
Speaker 3: has to be delivered by you and it has to
29:50
Speaker 3: be all done by you and the placenta. Now, what
29:55
Speaker 3: we're finding is because the students are dealing with a
29:58
Speaker 3: lot of high risk and there's not as many low
30:00
Speaker 3: risk birth. If a woman attends and she's having a
30:05
Speaker 3: baby and a student needs a birth, then I've seen
30:10
Speaker 3: the managers give the birth to the student and just
30:13
Speaker 3: get her in that room just as the women's about
30:15
Speaker 3: to deliver. So it's like, do you want to come
30:17
Speaker 3: and catch a baby? And I feel we women don't.
30:21
Speaker 3: Women are aware of what's going on in labor. We've
30:24
Speaker 3: been there ourselves, haven't We We know, we can hear,
30:27
Speaker 3: we can remember, but we aren't fully aware of the
30:30
Speaker 3: full surroundings. We're only we can remember snippets of what's
30:33
Speaker 3: going on. So although women can consent, I don't believe
30:37
Speaker 3: they would want to consent in that situation if you
30:39
Speaker 3: put it to them. In community at their birth their
30:43
Speaker 3: birth chat. How do you feel if a woman midwife
30:48
Speaker 3: was looking after your whole labor and then right at
30:50
Speaker 3: the end a student slipped in that you'd never met
30:52
Speaker 3: in your life and delivered your baby.
30:54
Speaker 1: I don't think.
30:54
Speaker 3: Many women would want that. I generally don't. I know
30:57
Speaker 3: I wouldn't as a woman. So I feel like we're
31:00
Speaker 3: just not being transparent across the board. And the problem
31:03
Speaker 3: there is, you know, we haven't got well women, so
31:07
Speaker 3: we've got lots of women that we class as red
31:10
Speaker 3: and blue. Blue is normal low risk, Red is high risk.
31:14
Speaker 3: So if you've got lots of high risk, these students
31:16
Speaker 3: are really struggling to get their forties. So I've got
31:18
Speaker 3: one midwife who's qualified, and she's still she qualified in August,
31:21
Speaker 3: she still hasn't got all of her birth so she's
31:24
Speaker 3: got to come in And I then wonder who is
31:26
Speaker 3: she paid? Is she ensured? You know, you don't know
31:29
Speaker 3: all the legalities around that, because if she's qualified, how
31:32
Speaker 3: can she still do you know what I mean? There's
31:33
Speaker 3: lots of questions I don't know these answers to, but
31:35
Speaker 3: we just assume it's okay. So I worry about how
31:39
Speaker 3: the students are being trained in terms of that is
31:43
Speaker 3: not safe practice. You don't really know anything about the
31:45
Speaker 3: women apart from being told deliver this baby, and the
31:49
Speaker 3: student might not want to do that but feels obliged
31:51
Speaker 3: because she has to get her numbers. So there's a
31:54
Speaker 3: lot going on there to unpick again.
31:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, can I just say that if you have got
31:59
Speaker 2: twenty that you attend for the whole time, and you
32:02
Speaker 2: catch the baby when it comes out, then that is
32:06
Speaker 2: probably so much more worthwhile than just being there at
32:09
Speaker 2: forty at the end to take the baby when it arrives.
32:13
Speaker 2: Because obviously it's going to continue that we're going to
32:17
Speaker 2: have these bursts that aren't as easy as they were
32:20
Speaker 2: in the past, and therefore perhaps this number of forty
32:23
Speaker 2: is a ridiculous way of actually assessing people. This needs
32:27
Speaker 2: to change. I'd suggest the complications we've talked about high
32:32
Speaker 2: blood pressure, You've talked to me about the CALCI five
32:35
Speaker 2: percenters that you've seen, and obviously there are baby deaths
32:38
Speaker 2: as well. Do you want to say something about if
32:41
Speaker 2: that's changed over recent years, or whether this has been
32:45
Speaker 2: a gradual increase, or what things you are seeing in
32:49
Speaker 2: terms of the complications.
32:51
Speaker 3: I think even when I did my volunteering in twenty twelve,
32:54
Speaker 3: I remember it being busy. It's always been busy maternity.
32:58
Speaker 3: But I can remember at midwife was crying in the
33:00
Speaker 3: cupboard when I went in on a Sunday. I left
33:03
Speaker 3: my children at home with my husband and I went
33:05
Speaker 3: in and volunteered every Sunday on transitional care. And the
33:09
Speaker 3: midwife was crying in the cupboard and she said to me,
33:12
Speaker 3: whatever you do, don't become a midwife. And I never
33:16
Speaker 3: really thought about that until the last year, and I thought, boss,
33:19
Speaker 3: you know she you know when I think about that,
33:21
Speaker 3: what was she feeling? I understand what she was feeling.
33:23
Speaker 3: So maternity's always been a bit chaotic. It's a bit
33:28
Speaker 3: of a big cattle and a run for all. It's
33:31
Speaker 3: absolutely pandemonium sometimes. And although there's structure in what we
33:36
Speaker 3: do through our practices and coder conducts and things, when
33:39
Speaker 3: you actually put those all of that evidence to that practice,
33:43
Speaker 3: they don't match up. Sometimes it doesn't make me logical sense.
33:47
Speaker 3: So over the years, like when I was training, like
33:51
Speaker 3: I say, yes I did see loss, and yes I
33:54
Speaker 3: did see harm, and yes I did see shouldered destocias,
33:59
Speaker 3: and which is where the baby's shoulder gets lodged underneath
34:02
Speaker 3: the pubic arch and it's a horrendous emergency and it
34:06
Speaker 3: cost a midwife her role. She left not long after
34:09
Speaker 3: one that was awful. So you do you try to
34:14
Speaker 3: not desensitize yourself, and that's something I've been really proud of.
34:17
Speaker 3: I will cry and I will talk about it. However,
34:21
Speaker 3: in the last few years, although I've had a lot
34:23
Speaker 3: of sickness because of my Type one diabetes diagnosis in
34:26
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen, I blamed myself and thought it was my
34:30
Speaker 3: health that was impacting my midwif free. I thought, oh,
34:33
Speaker 3: I can't you know I'm not good enough midwife now
34:35
Speaker 3: because I've got diabetes. And actually what I failed to
34:39
Speaker 3: realize was, and I've only really reflected on this again
34:42
Speaker 3: because I've left and I'm able to look back, is
34:44
Speaker 3: that the system is probably the worst it's ever been
34:50
Speaker 3: since I've been there in ten years. And I don't
34:53
Speaker 3: know whether it's it's very multifaceteds. You can't just pick
34:56
Speaker 3: one thing and say it's that. It's a lot of things,
34:58
Speaker 3: and I do think the system is built that way,
35:01
Speaker 3: so you never quite work it out. And when you're
35:04
Speaker 3: a critical thinker, and I have to say, I feel
35:06
Speaker 3: like the worst thing they ever did was employing critical
35:11
Speaker 3: thinkers because we will analyze and we will pick things apart,
35:15
Speaker 3: and it's not difficult to start seeing trends, and it's
35:18
Speaker 3: not difficult to start going aha, a Eureka moment, ah ah,
35:23
Speaker 3: and then your brain starts. You sit in a daydream
35:26
Speaker 3: and like you're in Alice in Wonderland. You're like, what
35:29
Speaker 3: is going on? But because I'm very inquisitive and nosy,
35:33
Speaker 3: I started probing into other things around the tannesity, into
35:36
Speaker 3: the general side of the hospital. I think what alarmed
35:39
Speaker 3: me last year twenty twenty three, particularly into last year,
35:44
Speaker 3: was how unwell women have become and how many babies
35:50
Speaker 3: had died. And what I kept saying to the Brieven midwes,
35:54
Speaker 3: so surely our birth rates, our still birth rate's gone up.
35:57
Speaker 3: It feels like every week we've had a loss, or
36:00
Speaker 3: every few days you were hearing another loss, or particularly
36:04
Speaker 3: around about the in the second trimester alone, I would
36:08
Speaker 3: say more so. And I was delivering women and normally
36:15
Speaker 3: their placenta would match the size of the baby. You
36:18
Speaker 3: get used to visually seeing, oh that's a normal placenta.
36:21
Speaker 3: You know, you'd get a good eight pound baby and
36:23
Speaker 3: you'd look at the center and you go, oh, that's
36:24
Speaker 3: a good size percent. It looks all normal. But what
36:27
Speaker 3: I was seeing was that some babies were large and
36:29
Speaker 3: their placentas were smaller, or their placentas were calcified. And
36:33
Speaker 3: normally you might see that with smoking or heavy drug addiction,
36:37
Speaker 3: or sometimes obesity with placental flow, but that it just
36:41
Speaker 3: didn't seem to add up. I was seeing more and
36:43
Speaker 3: more and more of it, and because I didn't quite
36:45
Speaker 3: twig what was going on, I just discarded it and thought, well,
36:49
Speaker 3: there you go, account the five percenter or But I
36:52
Speaker 3: think what I was finding hard was the amount of
36:56
Speaker 3: loss that was coming in the amount of you know,
36:59
Speaker 3: like I've gone old goose bumpy just saying this, the
37:01
Speaker 3: woman screaming not just through birth but through loss will
37:06
Speaker 3: remain with me forever. It will never ever leave me,
37:11
Speaker 3: and it will never leave them, and they'll remember you
37:13
Speaker 3: just as much as you remember them, because it's they're
37:15
Speaker 3: locked in that moment. And I think I'm actually shaking
37:19
Speaker 3: talking about it because it's so deeply distressing to so
37:26
Speaker 3: sorry to remember that the maternity services that I went
37:32
Speaker 3: into is an absolute dark tunnel of what I what
37:38
Speaker 3: it is now. So the loss I worry was potentially
37:44
Speaker 3: down to the vaccine injuries. I would never say I
37:47
Speaker 3: was an anti vaxxer. I had two vaccines myself. But
37:51
Speaker 3: I think what concerned me was that every time I
37:55
Speaker 3: asked a woman if she'd had all the vaccines, I
37:58
Speaker 3: did not meet a single woman that didn't have a vaccine.
38:01
Speaker 3: And that was alarming. Really, they've all had them, they
38:03
Speaker 3: all invested, and you know when, I didn't really look
38:07
Speaker 3: at the evidence at all until recently in the last
38:09
Speaker 3: six months about it, but I knew something wasn't right
38:12
Speaker 3: and I could see it. So I've received quite a
38:14
Speaker 3: lot of messages on x and on other platforms saying, look, Victoria,
38:19
Speaker 3: the evidence about COVID is this and thiseness. I'm not
38:21
Speaker 3: disputing that. What I am saying is I've I'm a
38:26
Speaker 3: midwife and I've walked those wards and I have seen
38:31
Speaker 3: those women and those babies, and the common denominator for
38:37
Speaker 3: these women is a COVID vaccine, and that's it. Just
38:43
Speaker 3: it almost hit me like a brick, and I was
38:46
Speaker 3: not long after that I was gone.
38:48
Speaker 1: Wow, it's kind of hit me like a brick. And
38:52
Speaker 1: if I may, I want to just make I want
38:53
Speaker 1: to row back a little bit and make a few
38:55
Speaker 1: comments on some of the things that you've said, and
38:57
Speaker 1: then bring Cheryl in next to talk about vaccine injuries,
39:04
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen vaccines and the work that she's been doing
39:08
Speaker 1: with regards to the pregnancy monitoring data. So before I
39:13
Speaker 1: do that, I just want to say, oh my goodness,
39:15
Speaker 1: I've written down so many little notes here. But I
39:19
Speaker 1: wrote to the Royal College of General Practitioners and I
39:22
Speaker 1: asked them what the doctors knew about the serious adverse
39:26
Speaker 1: reactions and the ingredients of the COVID nineteen vaccine. I
39:30
Speaker 1: received a reply back to say that doctors were not
39:32
Speaker 1: aware of the serious adverse reactions, nor were they aware
39:36
Speaker 1: of the ingredients. So I'm not surprised when you're telling
39:39
Speaker 1: me that you're not aware of the ingredients or serious
39:44
Speaker 1: adverse reactions of some of these drugs that you're giving.
39:47
Speaker 1: And one thing that just hit me, and this is
39:49
Speaker 1: just me talking as a mum, not as a nurse,
39:52
Speaker 1: but niphedepine is a labor blocker. Now, if somebody is
39:58
Speaker 1: in late stages of pregnancy maybe thirty seven thirty eight
40:03
Speaker 1: weeks and is exhibiting a high blood pressure. Then I
40:08
Speaker 1: think back in my day, possibly we would have talked
40:11
Speaker 1: more about maybe we should get that mum delivered now
40:15
Speaker 1: rather than give them something to reduce the blood pressure,
40:20
Speaker 1: but also to stop labor, because once baby is born
40:23
Speaker 1: then everything normally goes back to normal fairly quickly. So
40:28
Speaker 1: that was one thing I wanted to point out. The
40:30
Speaker 1: other thing that I wanted to point out, too, was
40:32
Speaker 1: that in my day, and we have to remember that
40:35
Speaker 1: you've done a BSc in midwif three, whereas in my
40:39
Speaker 1: day we had state certified midwives. So student midwives were
40:43
Speaker 1: on the wards and on the prenatal anti nakal post
40:48
Speaker 1: nakal labor ward, in theater. They were everywhere, and they
40:53
Speaker 1: were the heartbeat of the hospital. They literally did. You
40:57
Speaker 1: would have senior student midwives or senior student nurses. You
41:02
Speaker 1: would have them supervising the juniors, and the senior student
41:05
Speaker 1: nurses would be supervised by the staff nurse or the sister,
41:08
Speaker 1: and that's how it would work, and we would be
41:10
Speaker 1: on the ward all the time. And in my day
41:13
Speaker 1: also and in Cheryl's day, we were told not even
41:16
Speaker 1: to take a paracetamol. You know, pregnant pregnant mums, fresh air,
41:20
Speaker 1: healthy food, early to bed, you don't need to take
41:24
Speaker 1: an unless obviously you were diabetic or you had a
41:27
Speaker 1: medical condition that required long term medication. But we were
41:31
Speaker 1: told generally not to take anything. But also there, Victoria,
41:35
Speaker 1: you were talking about busy wards, and I want to
41:39
Speaker 1: come back after Cheryl's talked about vaccines because I want
41:42
Speaker 1: people to remember that you're not just dealing with mum.
41:47
Speaker 1: You're dealing with mum, you're dealing with baby, You're dealing
41:51
Speaker 1: with partner, husband, grandma, whoever has come to be with
41:56
Speaker 1: a support for mum. And you're dealing with students too.
42:00
Speaker 1: So labor ward is a very busy place to be,
42:03
Speaker 1: with a lot of people and a lot of emotion.
42:07
Speaker 1: So I just wanted to make that point because it
42:09
Speaker 1: is a very intensive environment. Cheryl, can I bring you
42:12
Speaker 1: on to talk more about the vaccines, and especially the
42:16
Speaker 1: vaccines that we've been given, or that they've been given
42:19
Speaker 1: to pregnant women and also to babies.
42:23
Speaker 2: I've got a leaflet here that the MHRA was asking
42:26
Speaker 2: maternity units midwives to give out to pregnant women to
42:32
Speaker 2: ask them if they take part in the Yellow Card
42:35
Speaker 2: Vaccine monitor, so that they had pregnant women involved, so
42:39
Speaker 2: that they could talk to them before perhaps they became pregnant,
42:42
Speaker 2: or what time they had the injection the vaccine in
42:47
Speaker 2: relation to their trimestru and what have you. I don't
42:49
Speaker 2: know whether this is something that you have seen, whether
42:52
Speaker 2: it was something you were asked to give out in
42:54
Speaker 2: your hospital. Did you have anything to do with the
42:57
Speaker 2: Yellow Card Vaccine Monitor?
42:59
Speaker 3: No? No, So I didn't work in community, and I
43:02
Speaker 3: haven't worked in community for quite some time, since twenty
43:05
Speaker 3: twenty two or twenty one, I think, I can't quite remember.
43:09
Speaker 3: I think it was twenty one, late twenty one, and
43:12
Speaker 3: I can imagine that will probably be in the women's
43:15
Speaker 3: packs because I work in an acute environment. It's literally
43:20
Speaker 3: what I see there and then. So, no, i'd never
43:22
Speaker 3: seen that, and I've never given a vaccine. I've never
43:26
Speaker 3: given a COVID vaccine or a flute or a whooping
43:29
Speaker 3: cough because I wasn't in those areas and I hadn't
43:31
Speaker 3: done the e learning. In fact, I refused. It got
43:34
Speaker 3: sent to me, but I didn't do it.
43:36
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, this actually states to women. The large trials
43:41
Speaker 2: which showed that these vaccines are safe and effected did
43:43
Speaker 2: not include pregnant women so often happens in clinical child
43:47
Speaker 2: This means there is limited information about the effects of
43:50
Speaker 2: COVID nineteen vaccination and pregnant women. It said a very
43:53
Speaker 2: small number of women became pregnant after they received the
43:56
Speaker 2: vaccine in a trial. There was two hundred and more.
44:00
Speaker 2: They weren't followed up. There was no sign of problems,
44:04
Speaker 2: but the numbers are too small to be certain. But
44:07
Speaker 2: in the end, the MHRAS collecting more information to help
44:10
Speaker 2: us build a better picture. So will you take parties?
44:12
Speaker 2: Basically what it was saying having told you what they'd
44:15
Speaker 2: just told you, So that is the vaccine monitor. You
44:21
Speaker 2: were saying that most of the people had problems seemed
44:23
Speaker 2: to be vaccinated. Did you find that most of the people,
44:26
Speaker 2: most of the pregnant ladies who were coming into your
44:29
Speaker 2: labor wards had been vaccinated.
44:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you I would always check to a check
44:37
Speaker 3: very anal person. I do everything methodical, so the front
44:40
Speaker 3: to backbook, and you'd always see that they'd have their
44:43
Speaker 3: whooping cough and their flu. It was very rare over
44:45
Speaker 3: met anybody that didn't, you know. And I think at
44:48
Speaker 3: that time, I trusted my I trusted my governing body,
44:53
Speaker 3: I trusted my employer. I trusted that they would always
44:57
Speaker 3: look out for the safety of other people. So when
44:59
Speaker 3: they were coming in through triage, it's so so busy,
45:02
Speaker 3: And I didn't do nights because I couldn't as a
45:04
Speaker 3: Type one diabetic. So it's so busy in the day
45:08
Speaker 3: that it's just not possible to even sit and have
45:11
Speaker 3: a conversation with someone about anything like this. It's just
45:14
Speaker 3: not possible. So wasn't I wasn't aware of anybody that
45:18
Speaker 3: hadn't had the vaccine. If I asked them, they'd to
45:20
Speaker 3: always say yes. Now they might have not had it,
45:23
Speaker 3: but they didn't want an argument or anyone to judge them,
45:26
Speaker 3: because it can be quite judge you can't in healthcare,
45:28
Speaker 3: and they probably just didn't want the discussion. So who
45:30
Speaker 3: knows by that point who did and who didn't, because
45:33
Speaker 3: they might have just said yes, I did. But to
45:37
Speaker 3: be honest, through our time through COVID, it was absolutely
45:42
Speaker 3: drummed into us. You know, this was the most alarming
45:45
Speaker 3: thing about it. A woman would attend on her own
45:48
Speaker 3: without her husband in labor or in labor they could
45:53
Speaker 3: come in as one at one point, but that was it.
45:55
Speaker 3: But on the ward laboring and they might have been
45:57
Speaker 3: laboring for hours, they weren't allowed anybody. So it's interesting
46:00
Speaker 3: that they could be in a bed and have a
46:03
Speaker 3: mask on and the curtains shut and labor I couldn't
46:08
Speaker 3: have a partner in, and we couldn't sit together at desks,
46:10
Speaker 3: and there was tape everywhere. But you have to remember
46:13
Speaker 3: I was doing vaginal examinations all the time. I'm touching
46:17
Speaker 3: a woman. I'm going I'm touching an open cavity within
46:22
Speaker 3: her body. None of it ever really made sense, you know,
46:28
Speaker 3: just none of it was logic sense. So I think
46:30
Speaker 3: for me, I was never really aware that there were trials.
46:33
Speaker 3: I thought it was all ticknyboo. I trusted all of
46:37
Speaker 3: these governing bodies and all these peer reviews and all
46:40
Speaker 3: these evidence based practices that I would never have questioned it.
46:44
Speaker 3: I only questioned it when I started to see that
46:47
Speaker 3: I was giving out labisa lore like it was sweets.
46:49
Speaker 3: I felt like a drug nurse. And I know you
46:52
Speaker 3: used to get those, didn't you, you know, go around
46:55
Speaker 3: the wards and giving out drug it was just you're
46:57
Speaker 3: giving out drugs. I have actually tried to look these
46:59
Speaker 3: satis sticks of Lobitha loole figures and they're not obtainable,
47:05
Speaker 3: so I need to go and do some research on that.
47:08
Speaker 3: But I felt like the biggest problem since the vaccines
47:13
Speaker 3: were hypertension, bleeding, anti natal bleeding, post natal bleeding, and diabetes.
47:22
Speaker 3: You know, we had so many women are diabetes, so
47:25
Speaker 3: there was just a lot going on with the fact
47:27
Speaker 3: that you it just couldn't all of a sudden just
47:29
Speaker 3: be COVID. A lot of these women were no longer
47:31
Speaker 3: COVID tested, they were no longer COVID positive, and many
47:34
Speaker 3: of them didn't have any any long term health conditions.
47:39
Speaker 3: They were normal, quite healthy women other than these complications.
47:43
Speaker 1: Victoria, I've kind of been counting up the number of
47:46
Speaker 1: vaccines that pregnant women are being asked to have, and
47:49
Speaker 1: is who can call tetanus, diphtheria, covid, flu RSV. It
47:55
Speaker 1: seems like crazy. It seems almost as though we've been
47:58
Speaker 1: talking about assisted dying for a very long time, the
48:01
Speaker 1: Assisted Dining Bill on UK column, and it looks as
48:03
Speaker 1: though we've medicalized death or death has become medicalized, and
48:08
Speaker 1: now birth has become medicalized, the most natural, beautiful process ever.
48:13
Speaker 1: But we're hearing all of these horror stories, and they
48:18
Speaker 1: are horror stories. And I know that you've got a
48:20
Speaker 1: ton more. But for people that are watching now, grandparents
48:25
Speaker 1: like me, and new mums and people thinking about having
48:29
Speaker 1: a family in the future, this is all going to
48:32
Speaker 1: be very scary for them. And I'm already receiving emails
48:36
Speaker 1: from people that are that are cautious about going to
48:39
Speaker 1: the NHS. But I think we have to redress the
48:43
Speaker 1: balance a little bit and reassure women that if they're informed,
48:49
Speaker 1: take somebody with you that you trust, then things don't
48:53
Speaker 1: have to be horrific for you. What would your advice be,
48:57
Speaker 1: Victoria for women that are watching this, For grandparents that
49:00
Speaker 1: were watching this and you know they're due a new
49:03
Speaker 1: relative anytime soon and they're scared, what would you say
49:06
Speaker 1: to them?
49:07
Speaker 3: Fear is not pleasant. Mix that in with vulnerability in pregnancy,
49:16
Speaker 3: the unknown is a recipe for an outcome of worrying
49:22
Speaker 3: times for people, especially with mainstream media news, someone like
49:27
Speaker 3: me coming on and then saying all of these things,
49:29
Speaker 3: you know, and lots of people have said, you know,
49:30
Speaker 3: it's your duty to stand by your NHS. It was
49:33
Speaker 3: your duty to stand by your profession. But it doesn't
49:37
Speaker 3: feel right anymore. So I am acutely aware that we
49:40
Speaker 3: have to be really, really careful that we're not tipping
49:43
Speaker 3: this balance. You know, we've gone from home birth being everything,
49:47
Speaker 3: but we had high rates of still birth back then,
49:50
Speaker 3: a maternal loss. However, a lot of that was due
49:53
Speaker 3: to poor sanitation, big workhouses, overcrowded, overcrowded houses, so people
49:58
Speaker 3: moved into hospitals to birth if they do didn't have
50:00
Speaker 3: good sanitation. And it wasn't too long until the nineteen
50:04
Speaker 3: sixties that we see that in seventies at birth and
50:07
Speaker 3: became actually all everybody had to birth in hospitals, So
50:09
Speaker 3: you robbed anybody of a choice then, and women went
50:13
Speaker 3: for it. And so since then we've been really locked
50:16
Speaker 3: in a bit of a battle of trying to get
50:18
Speaker 3: these home births back out into the society. Now, like
50:22
Speaker 3: I've just said, one tip of one thing could be
50:25
Speaker 3: far far worse, So we have to be very careful.
50:28
Speaker 3: So I am in support of free birth, I am
50:30
Speaker 3: in support of home birth, I am in support of
50:33
Speaker 3: hospital birth, and I am in support of Severian section.
50:36
Speaker 3: But where it has to come from is within the woman.
50:39
Speaker 3: It has to come from in her and from her
50:42
Speaker 3: heart space of what she wants. So what we have
50:45
Speaker 3: to be mindful here is is about education through your
50:49
Speaker 3: own understanding. Our birth is our responsibility. And I know
50:56
Speaker 3: this is going to be a little bit uncomfortable, but
50:58
Speaker 3: actually I went around for the last three four years
51:00
Speaker 3: and blamed the consultant for my care and blamed the
51:04
Speaker 3: consultant for my birth when I came from a home
51:07
Speaker 3: birth the time before that It wasn't her fault. It
51:11
Speaker 3: was my decision. I made the decision to have that
51:15
Speaker 3: birth because I didn't fully inform myself and heal myself
51:20
Speaker 3: enough to understand that this trauma was secondary to some
51:24
Speaker 3: primary issues that I was carrying. So what we have
51:28
Speaker 3: to do is we really have to go back into
51:30
Speaker 3: our heart space together as families, in an environment where
51:34
Speaker 3: we can be understanding, compassionate, sharing stories, being really transparent
51:41
Speaker 3: about the true grit that being a mother's really tough,
51:45
Speaker 3: and giving birth is really hard, and raising a child
51:48
Speaker 3: is equally really really, really enormous. It's huge, what a responsibility.
51:54
Speaker 3: So I think for me now, it's about having a
51:58
Speaker 3: good balance. But it's got to come from from the woman,
52:01
Speaker 3: and it's got to come from her. And then behind
52:04
Speaker 3: her is her partner, and behind her is her family
52:06
Speaker 3: of support. So when you go to a hospital and
52:09
Speaker 3: you're going in for your appointment, sit there with open
52:12
Speaker 3: arms and receive the information that you're hearing. And when
52:16
Speaker 3: you hear it, what you then want to do is
52:19
Speaker 3: you want to make sure it fits in your inligns
52:23
Speaker 3: with your values. Is this what I believe? Do I
52:26
Speaker 3: believe this or is this coming from a place of
52:28
Speaker 3: my fear. Once you feel that it's coming from your
52:32
Speaker 3: heart space, you will make a better decision. And I
52:35
Speaker 3: think we are forced to make decisions quickly because the
52:39
Speaker 3: NHS is running at one hundred and million miles an hour,
52:41
Speaker 3: but us in our lives aren't running as fast as that,
52:44
Speaker 3: So we get dragged into the NHS's energy of make
52:47
Speaker 3: the decision now because we haven't got time and we
52:48
Speaker 3: won't be able to see you again because we're busy.
52:51
Speaker 3: And I think women just need to get Okay, doctor,
52:54
Speaker 3: thank you so much for your time, but I'm just
52:56
Speaker 3: going to go away and sit back. I'd like to
52:58
Speaker 3: book another appointment with you, and I'd like to talk
52:59
Speaker 3: about again, we haven't got enough reflection of what's going on,
53:03
Speaker 3: we haven't got enough awareness, and I think that's what's
53:06
Speaker 3: messing crucially, is that women are no longer in control
53:09
Speaker 3: of their birth, their bodies. They're giving it over and
53:14
Speaker 3: they're losing the control, which is making them anxious, which
53:17
Speaker 3: is making fear based decisions. So I think the answer
53:20
Speaker 3: to that, Debbie, is we've all got the responsibility to
53:23
Speaker 3: educate ourselves and make a decision with love of ourselves.
53:28
Speaker 1: I definitely agree with that. And you know what, young
53:31
Speaker 1: ladies out there, partners, listen to your parents, listen to
53:35
Speaker 1: your grandparents, talk to the wise people in your family,
53:38
Speaker 1: which actually brings me on because I'm looking at the clock, Victoria,
53:42
Speaker 1: and I'm aware that we're coming up for time. But
53:44
Speaker 1: I just want to finish and tie this up on
53:47
Speaker 1: you actually, and from nurse Mum and Granny and Cheryl
53:53
Speaker 1: and Mum as well. I want to ask you this
53:56
Speaker 1: has been a very traumatic experience for you. This was
53:59
Speaker 1: a huge dreamed job, right, This was the job that
54:02
Speaker 1: you absolutely loved and it's gone. And I want to
54:06
Speaker 1: know how you are and are you receiving support.
54:10
Speaker 3: Yes, I've got a really good family. I've got some
54:13
Speaker 3: amazing friends. And I think last year when I when
54:17
Speaker 3: the Trust obviously came back to me and said that,
54:20
Speaker 3: you know, whistleblowers go missing overnight, I think that scared
54:23
Speaker 3: a lot of my colleagues around me too. But I've
54:27
Speaker 3: been part of a good group. This year, I've been
54:29
Speaker 3: part of good people. I've stepped away from this. I
54:33
Speaker 3: stepped away for a few months to really heal myself
54:36
Speaker 3: and my triggers. So I've got great support. But obviously
54:40
Speaker 3: I know this is going to be quite quite a
54:42
Speaker 3: battle to try and see if we can make a
54:45
Speaker 3: shift in these changes. And it's not going to come
54:48
Speaker 3: from me. It's got it. It doesn't even come from maternity.
54:53
Speaker 3: It comes from us at home on our sofa, from
54:57
Speaker 3: really teenage. If I want to think about having a baby,
55:00
Speaker 3: what does that look like? What does it look like
55:02
Speaker 3: in this world? So I think the support for me
55:05
Speaker 3: is now. I'm feeling that I've made some small dent
55:08
Speaker 3: somewhere and if it ends today and you know, my
55:12
Speaker 3: ex gets shut down or whatever, I just think, well,
55:16
Speaker 3: I've changed or touched somebody's life somewhere, and that's all
55:20
Speaker 3: that really matters to me.
55:23
Speaker 1: You've certainly changed and touched our lives, Victoria, and I
55:27
Speaker 1: know that we're probably going to have to hook up
55:29
Speaker 1: again because I know that one thing that you are
55:31
Speaker 1: very interested in talking about, and we haven't got time
55:34
Speaker 1: sadly for today's interview is mental health and pregnancy. So
55:39
Speaker 1: I hope very much that you're agreed to come back
55:41
Speaker 1: to and talk to us more about mental health and pregnancy.
55:46
Speaker 1: But where can we find you, Victoria? Because lots of
55:50
Speaker 1: people are going to be saying I want to speak
55:52
Speaker 1: to this lady. Where do I find her? So tell
55:55
Speaker 1: us where are you?
55:57
Speaker 3: I'm on X at the moment, because the only platform
56:00
Speaker 3: that I'm not censored. I've put a couple of things
56:02
Speaker 3: on Instagram and it's been removed, so I think X
56:05
Speaker 3: of the place to find me. I don't always open
56:08
Speaker 3: and read messages if it's not your name. I know
56:10
Speaker 3: that people might not have their real name, but I
56:13
Speaker 3: find it difficult to open messages from people with no
56:16
Speaker 3: name and a blank face. I just need to know
56:19
Speaker 3: that somebody is authentic. But yeah, find me over there
56:22
Speaker 3: for really update, stories, evidence, my own opinion, my exit interview, everything,
56:28
Speaker 3: really Yeah.
56:30
Speaker 1: Well, I know that a lot of people are going
56:32
Speaker 1: to be doing that and we will have the details
56:34
Speaker 1: of where to find Victoria in the article beneath this interview.
56:39
Speaker 1: And if you like what the UK column do and
56:42
Speaker 1: you think that the information is valuable, which we certainly do,
56:45
Speaker 1: please share it. Please pass it around. Everybody needs to
56:49
Speaker 1: hear it. And with that in mind, before I throw
56:52
Speaker 1: to you, Victoria for your last word, I just want
56:56
Speaker 1: to throw to Cheryl first for her last word. Cheryl,
56:59
Speaker 1: thank you so much for agreeing to join me and
57:02
Speaker 1: Victoria today your final thoughts.
57:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you. I would like to thank Vicky for
57:11
Speaker 2: being that whistleblower, being able to talk about her experience,
57:15
Speaker 2: because I think this is something that we all need
57:17
Speaker 2: to know about because changes have to be made because
57:21
Speaker 2: we're not only risking mums, we're risking the babies that
57:25
Speaker 2: they're producing. And it's a very special unit that she
57:30
Speaker 2: was on and we need these services, especially if a
57:35
Speaker 2: lot of mums are having a problem. So yes, we
57:40
Speaker 2: need to keep speaking and I'm sure we'll talk to
57:42
Speaker 2: Vicky again.
57:43
Speaker 1: Thank you and I'm really looking forward to it. But
57:46
Speaker 1: on that note, Vicky, I'm going to throw to you
57:49
Speaker 1: with grateful thanks and love for your last word.
57:54
Speaker 3: Thank you both. So I want to put this out
57:58
Speaker 3: to women, and I'm going to call you and asked
58:00
Speaker 3: you to remind yourself that you are wise women. Our
58:05
Speaker 3: ancestors didn't have hospitals or drugs or interception. What they
58:10
Speaker 3: had were natural pharmacies. They were natural nurses, healers, midwives.
58:16
Speaker 3: They were all friends. They just bounced between communities and
58:20
Speaker 3: villages and daugh to door and they would support each other,
58:23
Speaker 3: passing down knowledge of the real truth about bodies through
58:29
Speaker 3: touch and sound and feeling and sensing. And we've completely
58:35
Speaker 3: detached from that now. We have to remember that back then,
58:39
Speaker 3: midwives and healers were the doctors that didn't have degrees,
58:43
Speaker 3: they didn't have exams and books. They were the people
58:48
Speaker 3: who were serving the people. And it was a keen
58:52
Speaker 3: interest for these people, and it would normally predominantly be women,
58:55
Speaker 3: but men and women were healers. And the inner wisdom
58:59
Speaker 3: that came from that is that we pass down for
59:01
Speaker 3: generations and generations how to burst and care for women
59:04
Speaker 3: and look after women. So I think my message to
59:08
Speaker 3: you now is to remember that there was a stage
59:11
Speaker 3: in all our lives that women as wise women and healers, nurses, doulers, birthkeepers,
59:19
Speaker 3: however you want to call them. There's a space for
59:22
Speaker 3: all of us in this solidarity. Everybody will benefit from
59:27
Speaker 3: an area of that, not just a restricted hospital service,
59:31
Speaker 3: and they're very highly regarded people in Anybody meets me
59:36
Speaker 3: and says what do you do? And I say a
59:37
Speaker 3: midwife I've never met with. Oh, oh, I don't like midwives.
59:41
Speaker 3: It's very rare you find that unless there's been a
59:44
Speaker 3: very difficult situation. However, I just want you, as wise women,
59:48
Speaker 3: to nurture your inner being. I want you to nurture
59:51
Speaker 3: yourself and connect yourself and fully inform yourself about what
59:55
Speaker 3: it is you want for your birth, whilst taking into
59:58
Speaker 3: account the fact that we are and the situation we're in,
1:00:01
Speaker 3: and we do have hospitals and we do birth in them,
1:00:04
Speaker 3: so we can't run in any fear. We have to
1:00:06
Speaker 3: face it and we have to try and find the
1:00:08
Speaker 3: best situation for everybody, because closing down any hospital or
1:00:14
Speaker 3: demising anything is not the answer. We have to just
1:00:17
Speaker 3: be very transparent in taking time to make our decisions.
1:00:22
Speaker 3: So what I say to all women who are wise
1:00:24
Speaker 3: women is to make the choice that you want to
1:00:27
Speaker 3: make women to women. Call upon your mother's, your grandmothers,
1:00:31
Speaker 3: your sisters, and your friends and talk about the birth
1:00:34
Speaker 3: that you want, and go and obtain the birth that
1:00:36
Speaker 3: you feel you need.