Midwifery Online Course(s) & Continuing Education

Beneath the surface of every labor and delivery room interaction between physicians, nurses, and patients (as well as their partners) vibrate the pressures of power. Who is in charge? Regardless of the stated beliefs or legal truth about who IS in charge, the dance between the characters in the labor room often plays out archetypally. Archetypes are a recurrent symbol or motif found in literature, art, or mythology that live within the unconscious influencing how individuals behave, think, and feel. While many archetypal energies are possible during labor, the dominant archetypal energies active in a labor room tend to vacillate between that of Caretaker, Orphan, Ruler, Hero, Innocent, and Warrior. Nurses, often drawn to the career to help others, connect with the Caretaker archetype. However, due in part to hierarchical structures within the hospital setting, nurses can be left feeling unseen, undervalued, or powerless activating the Orphan archetype. Comparable patterns can be observed in obstetricians with the Ruler and Hero and in parents with the Innocent and Warrior archetypes. Without consciousness of the power dynamics between these archetypal energies, satisfaction in both the process and outcome is often fleeting for parents and can lead to burnout in professionals. Greater understanding of the needs of each activated archetype provides individuals needed guidance in how to better navigate labor room power dynamics and why doing so matters profoundly.

The current culture of maternity care in the United States is at best lacking and at worst dangerous. With maternal mortality and postpartum depression rates at an all time high, unnecessary inductions and cesareans still incredibly common and breastfeeding rates staggeringly low, it’s time for a change. Midwifery care has been proven to improve almost all of those statistics but as it stands, there are not enough midwives to impact this kind of drastic change we need. The reason we don’t have enough midwives is because the rates of burnout in midwifery are so high. It’s time for midwives to join forces and begin taking care of themselves and each other to avoid burnout so that we can help more women have positive and empowering birth experiences and change the current culture of maternity care. This presentation will discuss why it’s so important to avoid burnout and give practical suggestions on how to avoid burnout both in midwifery education and midwifery practice.

Working in perinatal care can be deeply rewarding. It can also lead to job-related burnout and secondary traumatic stress. Secondary traumatic stress, or compassion fatigue, can occur when witnessing traumatic events in the workplace. This can occur when witnessing infant death or traumatic births, or when there is too much work, or work that doesn’t seem to make a difference, and little institutional support. A recent survey by AWHONN of 464 Labor & Delivery nurses found that more than a third reported moderate-to-severe symptoms of traumatic stress as a result of incidents they encountered on the job. This has serious implications for both patients and providers. Burnout and Compassion fatigue/secondary traumatic stress can lead to physical and mental health sequelae for professionals who experiences them. It can also have a negative impact on the care provided. Self-care is essential for being able to provide care to others. In this seminar, participants will learn about the causes and consequences of both burnout and secondary traumatic stress/compassion fatigue. The good news is that there is hope for recovery. Participants will learn some specific strategies for integrating self-care into their care for others.

Working in perinatal care can be deeply rewarding. It can also lead to job-related burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and moral injury. Secondary traumatic stress (compassion fatigue), or moral injury, can occur when witnessing traumatic events in the workplace. This can occur when witnessing infant death or traumatic births, or when there is too much work, or work that doesn’t seem to make a difference, and little institutional support. Unfortunately, this is remarkably common among caregivers for perinatal women. Burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral injury can lead to physical and mental health sequelae for care providers and have a negative effect on the care they provider. Self-care is essential for being able to provide care to others. In this presentation, participants will learn about the causes and consequences of burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral injury. Fortunately, there is hope for recovery. Participants will learn some specific strategies for integrating self-care into their care for others.

We will view birth through the lens of a physiological and transformative event that is satisfying and empowering rather than a painful ordeal that must be endured. More and more women are aware of the transformative potential of their births and are showing up. They are now looking for caregivers...doulas, doctors, midwives, nurses...who can accompany them, witness them and not interfere. They are seeking deeply connected conscious caregivers.

We will focus on 4 salient points:
1. Women do not give birth in 'ordinary consciousness' but rather in a deeper and authentic state of consciousness that expands their perspective.
2. What is that deeper state of consciousness, how can we language it, how can we get there and be in tandem with women rather then need to manage them?
3. All women have instinctual responses to their births, whether they access them or not. They much appreciate being validated, trusted and not disturbed in acting on their instinctual responses.
4. How can we as caregivers trust birth, trust women and trust ourselves to validate a woman's instincts and nurture and facilitate her to unfold these responses?

The rapid development and attempts at standardization and professionalization of the modern version of midwifery in the U.S. has created debate and tension about what, exactly, should be contained within the internationally recommended 3-year midwife training. Competencies in clinical judgment, intuition, multi-tasking, delegating, and other higher-order professional skills, hallmarks of modern midwifery, take longer to develop than just technical excellence. Midwives in my parts of the world are targeted during and after providing care by the dominate for-profit medical model. However, despite all this, charting defensively is not an integral part of midwifery training across the globe, most charting is not standardized therefore putting midwives at risk. Thus, increasing malpractice costs, and decreasing access to midwives is the result. Not having a context for charting, makes midwives vulnerable to litigation. Not good for the midwife, not good for the community. This presentation about defensive charting aims to bridge the gap by starting a conversation around honing critical thinking pathways, sharpening charting skills and debunking charting myths, optimizing charting habits, shared decision-making and tips to protect yourself during and after poor outcomes. Access the tools to close existing gaps in charting, acknowledge cultural incompetency, political reality, and design in-office systems of strength and confidence for the future.

In this presentation the current state of normal birth around the world will be described and the backlash and politics around the issue explored. The long and short term benefits will be reported along with new emerging research on the issue. Key strategies for optimizing normal birth both in a practical and political sense will be discussed.

Childbirth educators are often challenged to find ways to meet the needs of LGBTQ families in the classroom. This presentation offers an in-depth understanding of what is required to truly hold space for LGBTQ families. Concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity are explained in relation to the transformative experience of becoming a parent. A detailed outline is provided for protecting LGBTQ families against marginalization in the classroom, from advertising and communication with class participants to course materials and the physical classroom space. An exploration of gender inclusive language is included, so that childbirth educators can uniformly discuss pregnancy, birth and infant feeding in ways that are inclusive of new parents of all genders, orientations and family structures. For those who wish to teach specialized classes for LGBTQ families, additional aspects that arise in an exclusive space will be presented.

Midwives are well situated to provide inclusive care to our trans and non-binary clients and families. Our grounding in client-centred care, informed choice and choice of birth place are an asset when caring for pregnant people and their families who may have experienced discrimination in the health care system and in society in general. Expertise in trauma informed care can be utilized and broadened to a focus on trans informed care to facilitate safe, respectful and celebratory pregnancy, birth and postpartum care. This talk will explore how to build inclusive practices and philosophies of care. This will allow for a deeper conversation around safety for our clients as well as for midwives and other health care providers.

Mediation is a peaceful way to resolve and prevent conflict. By drawing attention to options strategies and reframing the real issues parties can release stuckness to find positive ways of communicating. We can mediate for each other and ourselves through awareness & self care.

Family conflict affects us all. Midwives have their own families at home and their familiar relationships at work. The families we care for may have their own conflicts. Mediation will bring mindfulness to being with ourselves with increased sense of calm. Midwives are often being all things to others and not finding time to be with themselves. Connecting to Mindfulness can bring mediation into our relationships and improved communications.