Denise and her blog
What Should You Learn on a Midwifery Aromatherapy Course?
Expectancy has been running aromatherapy courses for Midwives for 21 years. I have been teaching aromatherapy for over 40 years, including as part of a BA Honours degree at the University of Greenwich. My Masters degree focused on the safety of aromatherapy in pregnancy and birth.
You might find another course, cheaper, better publicised and looking like it's more fun but is it really what you need rather than what you want? Compassionate care is about safe care, so aromatherapy always need to be safe before it's effective.
The issue for midwives is not about the lovely aromas and a bit of massage. It's about using some aspects of aromatherapy as a specific clinical tool to enhance midwifery care. Furthermore, it's about fitting aromatherapy into the parameters of midwifery practice outlined in the NMC Code, especially since aromatherapy is not a standard part of midwifery practice. It's an additional tool that can be a fabulous complement to midwifery care but it needs to fit in the context of your midwifery registration.
So, what should an aromatherapy course for midwives cover?
- What is aromatherapy?
- Chemistry of essential oils
- Benefits AND risks of essential oils in pregnancy and birth
- Indications, contradictions and precautions to aromatherapy in pregnancy and birth
- Pharmacology and pharmacokinetics
- Legal aspects of using oils in midwifery and in maternity units and birth centres
- Professional issues for midwives providing aromatherapy, in the maternity unit, birth centre of home setting
- Health and safety aspects of using oils in the workplace
- Dealing with complications - and how to minimise the risks
- Professional autonomy when using essential oils
- Protecting yourself as well as others
- The practice of aromatherapy - scientific modes of blending, methods of administration - note that this comes after the professional, scientific and safety aspects have been covered
In Support of Home Birth
I am desperately sorry for the family of the mother and baby who died following a home birth recently. I am also sympathetic towards the midwife and other staff involved in this situation who did their best in difficult circumstances. Whilst it is not my place to comment on the precise details of this case, it seems that the family decided to birth “outside of (NHS) guidance” and allegedly, repeatedly declined to accept advice for transfer to hospital for medical care.
However, the media has taken it upon itself to castigate the family for its decisions, an unkind reaction for a devastated family, and has concluded that it was the family’s choice of home birth that was “wrong”, sparking yet another furious debate about the risks home birth. In particular, the family’s previous experiences of the maternity services seem to have influenced their choices for the birth of their second child at home.
Having a baby is a normal life event. Women’s bodies are designed to be pregnant and give birth. I had my son, Adam, at home, at the age of 34 - a 24-hour labour and a forceps birth; he weighed 4.3kg. However, the obstetrician and the two midwives who cared for me were friends. They knew me well enough to know that if things started to deviate from physiological progress, I would accept their decisions. And I knew them well enough to know that if they advised transfer to hospital, it was the right decision. We trusted each other and we worked in partnership with one another.
I trained as a midwife in the middle 1970s, only a few years after the Peel report advocated hospital birth for all women, yet we were still emotionally committed to birth at home. As students we learned to recognise when labour progress was deviating from normal and we knew what to do about it. We used techniques which have now been given fancy names (such as “hypnobirthing” and “biomechanics”) – these were a standard part of midwifery practice. We grew to know the families and saw them frequently for both antenatal care and “parentcraft” classes, which served as both an educational opportunity and a social meeting place. As a community midwife, we usually attended births on our own, without mobile ‘phones for added communication with colleagues or satnavs to find our way in the middle of the night.
Home birth is safe – and often safer than having a baby in today’s NHS with its “institutional ticking clock” and the belief that things should progress at a pre-defined pace based on nothing more than management needs for bed space and saving money. This family – and many others - are victims of a disempowering system which made them afraid to have their baby in a maternity unit and who decided that their home, surrounded by their family, was the natural place to give birth.
Nowhere, in what I have read about this case, has there been any real media acknowledgement of the underlying issues within the NHS which may have contributed to the family’s choices. Issues include coercive (bullying) behaviour from doctors and midwives for a woman to adhere to a particular course of action, staff shortages leading to harassed care providers, the paternalistic and litigation conscious approach to childbirth, the lack of experience of “normal” (physiological) birth amongst more recently qualified midwives and doctors and a blurring of the lines between what is normal and what is not.
It is time for parents, professionals and the maternity services to reclaim childbirth as a normal human bio-psycho-social event. The public needs to regain its trust in the maternity services and those who care for expectant and birthing women.
Previous articles
What Should You Learn on a Midwifery Aromatherapy Course?
In Support of Home Birth
The Power of Essential Oils
Worldwide Midwifery Friendships
Ginger in pregnancy
Midwives - Adapting To Change
What Does Is Mean To Study With Expectancy?
A little note from me
The Identity of a Midwife
Past the Due Date
