International Day of the Midwife 2020!

This year, for obvious reasons, International Day of the Midwife was very different to usual. Nevertheless, it was a day to celebrate (perhaps even more than usual) and there was a full day of events scheduled!

Click here to watch the vlog or see below.

 According to the International Confederation of Midwives, International Day of the Midwife began in 1951 to recognise the life-saving work performed by midwives around the world and to bring attention to maternal and newborn health issues.

I woke up bright and early and got ready for the day. Of course, I had to wear red because it is the Royal College of Midwives colour of the year. Although, I was quite surprised to see on twitter that other bodies were using yellow as the colour. I hadn't heard of that before.

I was super excited to log onto the Midwifery Society's MS TEAMS page and watch the first live of the day. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite what I had anticipated and it turns out that the day's events weren't actually live and instead just pre-recorded clips or posts of about 5 minutes each. Admittedly, I was a little disappointed but understood the reasoning why and in the end it worked out well, because I could go outside and enjoy the day in the sunshine, catching up on my phone instead of the laptop.

The events I had organised for the Nursing and Midwifery Association all ran smoothly and I was very happy with it all. This year the theme was Celebrate, Demonstrate, Mobilise, Unite. I big idea I had had was to get students and staff to send in pictures of themselves holding up words that they associate with the career. It was amazing to see so many positive words! This was a way to mobilise to community, unite all together, demonstrate why we love the carer and celebrate it.

We also hosted a Facebook LIVE to talk about the topic with Ellie Durant (you can still watch it if you missed it). Ellie answered lots of fantastic questions submitted LIVE and spoke about a wide range of interesting topics, with an insightful discussion on vulnerability and accessibility amongst many more. We also talked about her journey to midwifery, her books (2 published and at least 3 more in the works!) and the incredible platforms she has created. Both the Facebook group, The Secret Community of Midwives, and her blog have been a huge help to many around the world.

I then headed outside to enjoy the sun. I printed off all my research papers (the final six) and so had a couple left to highlight and read through for the third time. By the end of the day, it was really lovely to see the videos that MidSoc had made. I appeared in a handful of clips although not quite as many as I had sent in! I also ended up winning a Student Award thanks to my contribution to the Tell Us Now project and then it was time for tea, before the last commitment of the day.

The Virtual International Day of the Conference was exciting and great to be apart of. I'm going to share a little bit more about my experience tomorrow but let's just say, it didn't go to plan! I ended up having to go for a little walk to destress but if you want to hear more, click here.