ranty rant rant
Jul. 13th, 2009 02:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
squeefulfishThere seems to have been a bit of an uproar about Denis Walsh and lot of the anti-Walsh comments I've been hearing are because of his sex. Because he is, shockingly, a man. Even the BBC have called him a male midwife. Riiiight. So, let's start referring to female doctors again, shall we? Because obviously your sex is in any way relevant to how you perform professionally.
Denis Walsh is an amazing midwife, and his evidence based practise series of articles and entire oeuvre is pretty much required reading for us. With good reason. "Evidence based", two words that I'm a bit used to at this stage. Blindly accepting anything as gospel without evidence is what gets us into a situation where active management of labour is so bloody common! Gah, rant rant.
I am no less of a midwife because I haven't given birth. Denis Walsh is no less of a midwife because he hasn't, either. That's the thing about evidence based care, it's based on more than one set of information. There's a reason why midwifery degrees are 3 or 4 years long depending on where you train. The support I give to women in labour is no less because I've never given birth. Every labour is different, every woman is different, everyone's experiences of pain are different.
As regards what he has actually said on the matter of increased use of epidurals, well, one to one support in labour. Big fan of that. Big fan of choices and information. Especially, big fan of midwifery care. But that's a bit obvious.
Denis Walsh is an amazing midwife, and his evidence based practise series of articles and entire oeuvre is pretty much required reading for us. With good reason. "Evidence based", two words that I'm a bit used to at this stage. Blindly accepting anything as gospel without evidence is what gets us into a situation where active management of labour is so bloody common! Gah, rant rant.
I am no less of a midwife because I haven't given birth. Denis Walsh is no less of a midwife because he hasn't, either. That's the thing about evidence based care, it's based on more than one set of information. There's a reason why midwifery degrees are 3 or 4 years long depending on where you train. The support I give to women in labour is no less because I've never given birth. Every labour is different, every woman is different, everyone's experiences of pain are different.
As regards what he has actually said on the matter of increased use of epidurals, well, one to one support in labour. Big fan of that. Big fan of choices and information. Especially, big fan of midwifery care. But that's a bit obvious.
