Welcome to The Cranky Student Midwife
Exploring important topics in midwifery, from the perspective of a philosophically and (sometimes) temperamentally cranky student midwife.
'We need to have a chat.'
Having been only a couple of months into my midwifery programme, and mere weeks into my first community placement, I could hardly fathom how I could have already mucked things up enough to warrant such a greeting from my supervisor. My mind began racing: had I offended a parent? Was I to be told off for my tardiness that morning? Did one of my colleagues pick up on a mistake I hadn't noticed?
I suppose I was relieved to find it was none of the above. In reality, I had landed myself in hot water for overemphasising homebirth.
I had written my first 'blog post' the day before, though had no real intentions of publishing it. I'd already been feeling some frustrations regarding the way certain topics were (or rather, weren't) discussed with parents by the midwives I found myself shadowing. But having my knuckles rapped for discussing homebirth myself? Well, that just might have been the final push which led to the birth of The Cranky Student Midwife.
Why 'cranky'?
I had just about settled on 'cranky' after enough evenings spent angrily ranting to my husband about the inconsistencies, oversights, and flat out injustices which I daily discovered in the world of midwifery. Being American, I knew the word to mean grumpy and irritable — which I certainly was.
I wanted to be sure of my word choice, though. So I searched the term and was at first disappointed to find that 'cranky' means something different to British ears:
cranky (adjective)
- BRITISH informal — eccentric; strange and unusual
Well, I could hardly have dreamt up a more fitting word! To my readers on both sides of the pond, if you're wondering which usage of the term I intend, the answer is emphatically both. I am oftentimes irritable and unlikely to suffer fools gladly. Equally, I tend to hold deeply uncommon views, and will happily promote peculiar ideas which I believe to be true.
What you'll find here . . .
The CSM is in its infancy at the moment (yes, all my pregnancy and birth puns are intended), so you and I will be discovering together what to expect here. I can tell you now, though, you are likely to find views which many might call 'cranky.' A major motivation for my writing is to draw attention to topics which I believe are seldom discussed, often misunderstood, and even taboo: homebirth, freebirth, iatrogenic harm, bedsharing, natural-term breastfeeding, natural family planning, the value of life in the womb . . . These are just some of the topics I am passionate about, my interest in which may well render me a persona non grata amongst most of my colleagues. No matter! In this blog, I plan to bring together my (perhaps distinctly American) frankness, long-time love for writing, passion for all things midwifery, as well as critical examination of research. I hope you find the content to be interesting, informative, empowering, and entertaining.
But do remember: I am a self-described crank. You may well not like what you read here. Whether you do or you don't, feel free to drop me a line below!