ļ»æEpisode 165 - How to have a long and lovely midwifery career
[0:00] Welcome to the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Melanie Jackson. I'm a clinical and research midwife with my PhD, and each episode, I cast a critical eye over current maternity care practice by grappling with research and historical knowledge to help you get the best out of your pregnancy, birth, and postpartum journey.
[0:25] Welcome to today's episode of the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. Today, I'm giving you an expanded version of a talk that I presented at the Convergence of Rebellious Midwives 2025, which just happened this past week. And if you're new to the Great Birth Rebellion, you won't know yet, but I host a live Convergence of Rebellious Midwives every year. This year, It was in August and 520 Rebels came to Sydney, Australia. You don't have to be a midwife to come to the Convergence. They're from all different professions and some were just fans and they came and that was amazing. So we always have incredible presentations and this year was no different. One of the highlights this year being Ina Mae Gaskin who recorded over two hours of talks for the attendees and there were some other crowd favourites. Barshi Hazard, who is a human rights lawyer who works in childbirth law.
[1:25] Professor Hannah Darlin, but that was just the tip of the iceberg.
[1:29] Full roster of amazing speakers and we do that every year. So today I'm bringing you what I presented at the conference and I spoke about sustainable midwifery and becoming so good at your job that you can't be ignored. And I offered my thoughts on midwifery in the current maternity care climate.
[1:48] So today I'm going to bring you an extended version of that, along with a little bit of my commentary on the rest of the conference, and also touch on the challenges that midwives are facing when they work to their full scope and ability. Now, this episode is especially relevant if you're a midwife anywhere in the world and you're looking for ways to become even better at your job and ensure longevity in your career. And also, as an aside, if you want to come to Convergence of Rebellious Midwives 2026, I can confirm that we're converging in Melbourne, Australia, from July 31st to August 2nd. Tickets go on sale to the mailing list first, which is going to happen in early September 2025. We only have room for 700 attendees this year. That's the size of the room we've booked. So the mailing list gets first access to tickets and discount tickets from September 1st. And then the general public can buy tickets from mid-September. So if you want early access tickets or discount tickets, just make sure you get onto the mailing list and then you'll be the first to be notified.
[2:59] Okay, let's get into it. So today I'm talking about falling in love with midwifery. And this is relevant to any care provider who's working in the maternity care space or healthcare space because it's all about falling in love with your job. But obviously I'm a midwife, so I'm able to apply it to midwifery.
[3:18] And I want to acknowledge that many of you are listening at the moment and you're tired, stressed, bullied and oppressed, burnt out and traumatized. And many of you existing in a workplace that feels hostile, not only to women, but to midwives. And your career might be spent in a state of moral distress. This idea of moral distress is not new in the field of nursing. And we're just now starting to research what it means for midwives to be working in a state of moral distress and moral distress is about seeing the issues and the problems in your workplace but feeling like you have to be partaking in those things so for example policies and workplace culture that you're required to adhere to for your job but that you find it mal aligned with your moral compass and this creates daily repetitive distress because you feel like you need to do things that you don't believe in or that aren't good for women. In addition to this, many of you may be the subject of vexatious or unfair encounters with regulators or workplace managers and we know that the midwifery workforce is in crisis at least here in Australia but all over the world midwifery is in a state of crisis.
[4:45] There were midwives at the Convergence last year and I hear from you all year, midwives reaching out to me, and they were in the same position as what you were in, but they've experienced a pivotal moment that re-energized them to keep going in midwifery. And that's what I'm here to inspire you towards today. Hopefully this will be your pivotal moment to keep going in midwifery. And my hope is by the end of this episode, you'll feel ready to keep going and you'll have some strategies that will help you to keep going.
[5:15] Now, at the end of last year here in Australia, the midwifery workforce was examined through the Midwifery Workforce Project and the Midwifery Futures Report. And it found that Australian midwifery is in crisis and that we don't have enough midwives or students to meet the future workforce needs. And that also, this means into the future, we can't meet the needs of women during pregnancy, birth and postpartum. And I know that my midwifery sisters in the UK are really having a rough time as well. It sounds like the midwifery crisis is not isolated to Australia. Midwives are leaving the profession in record numbers and the average length of a midwifery career now here in Australia is around three to five years. There's no doubt this report showed it. The midwifery workforce is in collective crisis. And Professor Caroline Homer, who was part of the team who wrote this report, says, we can't keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. This is the moment to do something differently. So we're projecting that there's going to be a workforce issue. We have an opportunity now to make some changes to ensure that that doesn't happen. Caroline Homer, she knows, and there is hard proof now, that the system has not been able to support sustainable midwifery.
[6:37] Can we expect the system to change as a result of these findings? Can we expect our employers will suddenly start to take an interest in our well-being? And I hope that many of you out there who are listening have excellent workplace managers who love and care for them. But my suspicion is that those types of managers and workplaces are an exception and not the rule.
[7:04] So can we expect over the next three to five years to be paid fairly can we expect regulators to stop facilitating a modern day witch hunt can we start to expect our maternity care system to support our full scope of practice history would suggest no and just like midwives are fighting for the system to care for women, we're also fighting for the system to care for us, for ourselves. We're looking for a workplace and work environment that inspires us to stay in midwifery. And last year, I stood on the convergence stage in 2024, and I suggested that we can't expect the system to change for women and that we have to give women strategies, information, and resources to navigate their own birth. In the short term, it appears as though women need to fend for themselves if they want a satisfying and fulfilling birth. And just as the women can't rely on the system to serve them in a way that they need to be served, I think at least in the short term, we also can't rely on the system to change and care for midwives in a way that makes our careers sustainable.
[8:18] I do believe we're going to have to think for ourselves and my suspicion is that you won't last the three to five years if you don't take matters into your own hands because the system isn't going to suddenly change for women's sake we know that and I suspect it's not going to change for our own sake in the short term and that's what this episode is about. How to increase longevity in your career in midwifery, even if no one else cares about your longevity in midwifery. I'm going to offer you some strategies that will not only help you stay in midwifery for the long haul, but also to love it and thrive in it. Even if you exist in hostility, you can still apply what I'm going to tell you here and it will help you to create a sustainable midwifery career for yourself. And if you're a student midwife, you've got an opportunity now to apply these strategies to extend your midwifery career so that you don't become one of those midwives who don't make it three to five years.
[9:22] But really, we all want to stay in longer. We want a career, a 30, 40-year midwifery career.
[9:28] Imagine if our jobs were so satisfying and we loved them and we were sustained in it, that we could stay for our entire career, our working life. That's what I'm advocating for here. Now, for those of you who are out there listening and don't already know me intimately, and if you're not already following me on social media at Melanie the Midwife or through the Great Birth Rebellion at the Great Birth Rebellion on Instagram. And if you haven't been to a convergence of rebellious midwives before, I'm Dr. Melanie Jackson and I'm a mum of two grow babies. I'm a wife to Dan, midwife of 18 years. I'm an endorsed midwife here in Australia and I've been providing home birth services as a private midwife for my entire midwifery career. Now, I graduated at the top of my class at uni and was invited to pursue an academic career and as a result I was taken under the wing of Professor Hannah Darlan who continues to nurture me and I completed my PhD in 2014. And ever since then I've been involved in various research projects, midwifery lecturing, policy writing, advisory groups, midwifery advocacy and mentoring midwives into private practice. And I'm an entrepreneur but my sole business interest is to support and serve midwives and help women emerge from their pregnancy and birth in better condition than when they went in.
[10:56] And I've had a relentless and prolific career in midwifery and I've gotten no plans to stop not at least for another 30 years I really want to be one of those career midwives who you know even at my deathbed have just worked all the way to the end, because I genuinely believe in it and I genuinely love it.
[11:19] But I know that I'm going to have to fight to continue in midwifery. The path will not be easy for me. And I know that it's not easy for many midwives. And the Midwives Futures Report has showed us that, that it's hard for midwives to stay in midwifery. And to be honest with you, I'm not surprised that midwives don't want to midwife anymore. I didn't survive in midwifery to this point because of our profession and because our profession made it easy. I've survived because of a few key people around me and my sheer determination not to give up. I've had multiple opportunities to give up midwifery, multiple reasons not to keep going but there are some key elements in my journey that have helped me to persist on.
[12:10] So why do I feel the energy to keep going when a third of the midwifery profession here in Australia are already strategizing their exit plan. I attribute my drive to the relentless pursuit of excellence. And let me explain that. A few years ago, I read a book that gave me clarity behind my success in just staying in midwifery. And this is the book. It's called So Good They Can't Ignore You. Why Skills Trot Passion in the Quest for the Work You Love? and it's by Cal Newport. Now I've got a link in the show notes if you think you might want to read this book. It's written from a business perspective but the ideas in there can be applied to any career path. I don't believe it's isolated to just business people.
[13:03] So that book is called So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport. And in writing this book Cal Newport sought to discover why some people end up loving what they do. And he wrote this book to document what he discovered. And what he discovered is that passion for your work doesn't equal enjoyment or fulfillment on the journey to a long, sustainable career that you love. So a lot of midwives say, I'm a midwife because I'm passionate about caring for women. I'm passionate about midwifery. And what Cal talks about is that just being passionate will not help you survive in your job. It will not help you survive in midwifery. Passion can be fleeting. It can be an emotional feeling.
[13:48] And it's not a recipe to thrive. So let me tell you what does ensure that you're going to thrive in midwifery. And for midwives listening who already love their work and have already carved out a midwifery existence that feels sustainable and enjoyable, I'm going to take a guess that you've already lived out what is written in this book. So good they can't ignore you. So as you listen, see if this rung rings true for you, just as I read it and I realized that I'd inadvertently applied the strategies that Cal speaks about as I curated a career that I loved. It wasn't intentional, but as I read the book, I thought, oh.
[14:29] Okay, maybe, maybe that's the ingredient that's helped me survive this lot. Now, while I recommend that you do read the book, I'll give you a summary of what Cal found and how to apply this to mid-britory. So Cal says you need to be good at something before you can expect to fall completely in love with it. And the way to get good at something is to apply what Cal calls the craftsman or the craftswoman mindset and by placing importance on skill and ability. So getting really good at your job through the application of the craftsman mindset, creating you a set of rare and valuable skills that opens you up to new career opportunities. That's the premise of the book. Get really, really good at your job. Apply a craftsman's mindset to your work so that you develop skill and ability.
[15:24] These skills and abilities end up becoming valuable and then you get the opportunity at a career or at a job that you particularly love. Now, Cal advocates for the application of the craftsman's mindset, which is a mental strategy that you apply and the aim is to achieve mastery. So if you want to really love your job and create an opportunity at longevity and of staying longer than the average of three to five years in midwifery. We have to focus on a journey of mastery by investing our time and efforts into the acquisition of useful and valuable midwifery skills and knowledge. Now, this craftsman's mindset, every day you wake up and you ask, what can I learn today? How can I get 1% better? How can I be more helpful today than I was yesterday. So the idea is that you don't focus on all of the things that are happening around you in your workplace and the things that you want to change and the things that aren't working. You think, what can I do to make myself a 1% better midwife today than I was yesterday? What can I learn? What can I read?
[16:45] So you'll need to commit to this if you want to love your job and stay in it for the long haul, Cal found that the happiest workers were the ones who had been in their job for a long time. And that length of time facilitated the process of mastery. So when you actively invest in becoming so good at your job that you achieve expertise and mastery because you're thinking like a craftspeaker, you want to master and hone your midwifery skills. Then you start to build what Cal calls career capitals. So as a midwife or any worker, if you apply yourself to mastery, you will gather an arsenal of evidence-based care strategies, skills that everyone around you can see that you've achieved a level of brilliant in your work. So this is the so good they can't ignore it in part.
[17:40] And this starts to open you up to new and exciting opportunities, but also for you to fall more and more in love with your work. And then you also have a desire to keep going and to keep mastering your craft. If you've invested your time and money and energy into something and you've become really, really good at it, you'd be far more reluctant to give it up in the face of adversity. You'd be thinking, mate, I have invested time, money, energy and I'm really bloody good at this. There's no way I'm giving up. This is a recipe for longevity, but also excellence. You'd be actually giving women excellent care and feeling fulfilled because you're good at your job. You know that you're doing good for women.
[18:27] Now, Cal Newport is a man and I don't think he factored in the downsides of being excellent at your job as a woman or a midwife. And it occurred to me as I read his book, because I always like to read critically. And this was one of the books in the Assembly of Rebellious Midwives that I run. You can join it if you want to. It's open to any midwife. But I run an Assembly of Rebellious Midwives and we have a book club. And we did this book, So Good They Can't Ignore You. And as we were critically analyzing it, we reflected on what are the downsides of being excellent at your job as a woman or a midwife. And we did believe that for men, for example, in corporate jobs, because I believe that that was the avatar that Cal was writing for, that maybe for men in corporate jobs, when you get really good at your job and stand out above your peers as having excelled in skills and knowledge, the usual outcome, especially if you're a man and if your job performance makes money for your company, for example.
[19:35] You start to stand out above your peers and the usual outcome is that you get promoted and you get better and better offers of employment you become maybe you're moving to a leadership role you have more control over your job more autonomy and supposedly things will get better for you the better that you get at your job and then this simultaneously aligns with you enjoying your work more. You've got access to more autonomy and autonomy also leads to fulfillment in work.
[20:07] But something that Cal mentions is that you can't expect to love and thrive in your work at first. At first, you've got to apply yourself to the discipline of craftsmanship and aim to just try and get 1% better every day. So students listening and thinking, gosh, what have I got myself into? Well, at first, you're not going to be an excellent midwife. But having said that, you are going to be able to see the maternity care landscape for what it is. You'll feel the injustice of what happens. Things that other midwives who have been in the profession for longer are a little bit numb to, that if they've chosen to kind of block that out or not notice it, that could be a coping mechanism. But students, when you're in there, you can see things for what they are. You're in a really unique position because you haven't you haven't desensitized to the system yet.
[21:06] But there's an element where you might not actually fall in love with midwifery until your skills develop so the initial part of your role as a student midwife is to adopt a craftsman's mindset where you just think what can I learn today how can I get better how can I develop look into the best midwife possible. So unfortunately in this hostile maternity care climate, you can't expect to love and thrive in your work. Act first. So students who are early in their career and early career midwives who are wondering how the heck am I going to last another three to five years?
[21:44] This is it. The craftsman's mindset. How can I just get one percent better every day how can I be more helpful today what can I learn today you know on my first day of placement as a student midwife another midwife who'd been charged with helping me that day leaned down and she looked me in the eye and she said midwives eat their young gosh that was that was what 19 years ago now I hope that the climate has settled since then but the reason you feel the way you're feeling is that the system is built to suppress and depress us and keep us complicit in the systematic abuse of women in childbirth. And I know that that sounds aggressive, but what we know is that one in 10 women experience abuse at the hands of their care provider. And it's probably more than that. If you had a listen to the obstetric violence episode that I did a few weeks ago. And one in three women experience trauma as a result of their birth. And the majority of those are not traumatized by the outcome. They're traumatized by how they were treated.
[22:56] That's the landscape and people are trying to deny that that's happening but the evidence is really clear. Women are coming out of their births traumatized. A lot of women are living in worse condition than when they came in and today I'm arguing that the only thing that will sustain us in midwifery is to become really bloody good at it. Gather knowledge and skills to make you yourself the best possible midwife that you can be and hopefully then you can also support other midwives around you to be the best midwives that they can be. So that at the very least, even if we can't change the system, we can't change abusive policies or workplace culture, at the very least, you can give women safe and exceptional care.
[23:43] And that's the only thing that's going to keep you going, knowing that you're doing the best possible work for women. And in that process of mastery and the application of the craftsman mindset, that's where you fall in love with your job. So today, I implore you that the number one way to egg yourself on to keep going in midwifery is to ask yourself, how can I be an excellent midwife today? What can I learn? How can I help? Apply the craftsman's mindset to your work life and you've taken the first step to longevity. But I do believe you're going to have to take responsibility over your own learning and your own behaviours in order to survive in midwifery in this particular climate at this particular time.
[24:28] The next thing you'll do is to find other midwives who are trying to be great like you, and they're your people. Those are the people who are going to support you on this journey, and I do believe that's the vibe that happens at the Convergence of Rebellious Midwives. Everybody suddenly goes, oh, there's more midwives like me. I'm not alone. I'm not the only one. So what does it mean to be a master craftswoman in midwifery? So if we become so good that we can't be ignored what kind of midwives would we be what would happen to us well firstly you will be inspired to read and know the research and then apply it to your practice evidence-based care that's what we call that knowing and reading research and applying it to your practice secondly you'll give respectful maternity care because you'll understand what woman-centered care means and what informed consent means and you'll be knowledgeable enough to educate women to give them all the information possible so that they can make the best choices for them.
[25:40] Number three, when you're an exceptional midwife, you'll work out how to prioritize the needs and desires of the woman and respect her choices and expert midwives have this interesting capacity to sort of manage the pitfalls of the system in order to help the woman have her needs and desires next.
[26:08] Number four, you will have a broad scope of practice with a stack of clinical and relational skills that will make you capable of giving exceptional care wherever you work in anything. Number five, you will fall in love with your work because the women you care for are getting excellently whiffery and this is fulfilling for you to see the impact that you're making. And number six, you'll pursue midwives who are just like you because they understand and like-minded midwives will pursue each other's company. And that's what we did at the Convergence. That's what happens for midwives who were listening to the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. When you find another person listening to the podcast, you kind of know, okay, I think this is my person. These are your people. What also happens is that when you start to gather enough of these people, then you become changemakers. All of you together can petition for change in your workplace, for example. All of you together can create a subtle change in workplace culture that suddenly makes your workplace less hostile and more evidence-based and more woman-centered the craftsman's mindset opens you up to possibilities and what Cal Newport says is that not only does it open up career opportunities but it also creates opportunities for autonomy which is a really key element that Cal identified as a key element in people who love their job, have autonomy.
[27:37] So if you apply the craftsman's mindset, you'll be asking daily, how can I get 1% better today? How can I keep learning today? How can I get better and better at my job? If you relentlessly apply yourself to greatness, you'll not only become an exceptional midwife that no one can ignore, you'll also fall in love with your work. Now that was supposed to be the end of my Convergence speech. But the week I wrote it, something exceptional happened to me that changed the course of my presentations. I was going to stop my speech there. I was going to end it by encouraging all Convergence attendees to become skilled, educated, and persist in the pursuit of excellence as a way of maintaining sustainable careers. I was going to suggest that if we all become masters of our craft and provide evidence-based care, that we could fall in love with our jobs and carve out sustainable careers where people notice our brilliance and then give us midwifery jobs and environments that we wanted and that we thrive in because we'd earned them through our very hard work and diligence.
[28:52] But after I just sat through my very first disciplinary panel last week with the Nursing Midwifery Council where I was very strongly reminded of my responsibilities as a midwife because the Great Birth Rebellion podcast was recorded to the regulatory body. I realized that the possible cost of mastery and of excellence in midwifery is definitely a love and passion for the profession and great outcomes for our clients and for the women we care for. But I came to realize that you have to choose between being a great midwife.
[29:31] And having a peaceful existence without opposition. So in this maternity care climate, if you're a great midwife who wants to practice evidence-based care and woman-centered care, you are a tall poppy and you're rebellious because the maternity care system doesn't appreciate or encourage greatness. It values and encourages compliance. and critical thinking and independent thoughts are not welcome in a larger system so by you being great you become a target you will stand out against a crowd you will be so good that people won't be able to ignore you and that will bring you great things in your career through wanted attention but also unfortunately in midwifery it will bring you unwanted attention so my dear mentor and long-term friend Hannah Darwin once told me that, you know, you're making a difference in midwifery when you have haters.
[30:33] She wears haters and opposition as a mark of honour. She knows that when you work for positive change as a midwife, someone has a vested interest in making you stop. And I know Cal Newport is onto something when he suggests that the path to a long and lovely career is to be so good that they can't ignore you. But in midwifery, to stick your head up through the herd is to make it available for someone to chop it off. And when you apply yourself to mastery, The result will be that you'll realise that current maternity care practices are not evidence-based and you'll want to act differently. If the maternity care system were evidence-based, every woman would have an opportunity for midwifery-led care, continuity of care. We wouldn't be expected to put our fingers in women's vaginas every four hours. Women would not be getting CTGs unless they were being induced. All women would have access to water for labor and low-risk women would be given the opportunity to have a home birth if they want one if we had an evidence-based system it wouldn't look like it does today so when you become a master of your craft your eyes will be opened to the atrocities of the maternity care system and then you want to change it and then depending on the strategies you use. You'll be reined in by your employer.
[31:56] You may be reported to APRA. You'll be bullied by your colleagues and you'll feel that only a few people truly understand you. You'll be labeled a rebel.
[32:06] People will roll their eyes because being a great midwife makes you stand out against a system that wants to keep you mediocre. Because when you're mediocre, you'll toe the line, you'll comply with non-evidence-based care strategies that are delivered across maternity care systems all through the world now i think i know i know it sounds a bit dire and i've definitely been criticized for suggesting that the biggest threat to great midwives is other midwives and our managers and people who want to regulate them but i encourage you if you recognize someone great in midwifery, someone doing big and amazing things that, you know, someone maybe that you idolize. If you ever get an opportunity, ask them, what kind of opposition do you receive to your work? I can almost guarantee that everybody who has ever done anything great in midwifery has had to get very, very good at dealing with opposition. That's my theory. And I've spoken to a lot of people and I've been collecting, you know, bits of information about this so my theory is is that actually the vast majority of midwives who face opposition are the best ones the ones who have been around the longest and the ones who have become very very good at their job the craftsmen the craftsmen.
[33:32] Now, of course, there are midwives who have faced opposition because they genuinely have done something that requires some regulatory action or discipline. I'm not denying that there are a class of midwives who act poorly and who, you know, have fairly been subject to discipline and regulatory management. But my suspicion, and I plan on testing this soon, is that once you become so good that they can't ignore you, that you'll attract attention from people who want to take you down. And I do believe there is a modern day witch hunt happening just by the whispers. I speak to a lot of people in midwifery and the whispers are starting to change into this idea that there is a modern day witch hunt happening. Of hearing story after story where midwives are unfairly reported and targeted and they're increasingly becoming subject to unfair and unjustified disciplinary action. And I'm going to stop talking about that in a second. The whole podcast is not going to be so sad and dire.
[34:40] But if you are listening and you feel like you've been unfairly targeted by this modern day witch hunt. Myself and Hannah Darling are making some plans to explore this theory and my suspicion of the modern day witch hunt. So I'm collecting email addresses of midwives who feel they want to be part of a project such as this. It's very early in the process. This is simply a conversation that we're having at the moment. So the project is currently undefined, but we're working on something surgical and strategic in the wings and if you want to contribute something a story and experience some expertise of you if you feel like you've been unfairly and unjustifiably, disciplined or you know reported to APRA or anything like that.
[35:30] I've started what we call Bite Club, right? Bite Club for any midwife who feels like they've been unfairly bitten. And the link to join Bite Club is in the show notes. At the moment, it's just name and email and we'll email you when we know what we're doing. But we're keen to just gather a group of midwives who can contribute to a project like this. Okay, we're moving on from that. What I want to say is, is that we can't let the threat of opposition prevent us from pursuing greatness in our careers. Otherwise, none of the good ones would last. We should not resist becoming excellent at our jobs because it will bring us unwanted attention. Because when you're really good at your job, you'll give great care to women and you'll fall in love with it. So my suggestion is that when we become so good that we can't be ignored, we just have to also get really, really good at overcoming opposition and adversity.
[36:29] Work out how to manage the haters and how to manage the process of being opposed. So yes, I will tell you to become so good that you can't be ignored, but also to expect opposition and to get really good at managing it. So hone your skills of oppositional defiance like any other skill because you're going to need to be prepared. We have to fight to give good and agree-free care, unfortunately. So step one, apply the craftsman's mindset and become really great midwife and work at getting 1% better every day. Then also get really good at preparing for hostility and opposition. But how do we do that? Can you believe it? I've been able to put together 10 steps on how to be prepared for hostility. Gosh, I wish I did not need to say that sentence. Here we go. 10 steps on how to be prepared for hostility and opposition. Number one.
[37:30] Be really, really good at your job. That's what we've been talking about. So good, they can't ignore you. Gather skills, invest in your learning and strive for excellence. So point one, be excellent. Our behavior has to be beyond reproach so that when and if someone looks at our clinical work at the very least and looks at what we're doing, it's clear that we're thriving in excellence and that we're pursuing excellence.
[38:00] Number two, record and document your greatness. So keep a record of everything that you're doing. Make your clinical notes impeccable, lengthy, legible and chronological so they make sense to small and simple minds. Keep a detailed record of your achievements and your professional development and update your CME or resume regularly to reflect your activities and efforts. I have a folder. It's not called Record of Greatness. It's not called that. But it's basically my go-to folder if I ever need to defend myself. And it's got an updated CV, a clear record of all my continuing professional development, my record of my pursuit of excellence.
[38:52] So make a point of making that a folder, a clear folder on your desktop. Up number three write reflections of your big career events little bad ones so that when and if someone reports you for them look for your behavior and they come into question you've got documentary evidence but also this is something that you can look back on document the excellent events as well so the idea is to create evidentiary proof that you are a brilliant midwife so that You have so much fodder and documentary evidence that if and when your greatness is challenged, you can produce it in a moment to defend yourself. I wish I did not have to say this, but this is how you prepare for hostility.
[39:38] Number five, maintain close friends and colleagues who will be there for you when you do encounter hostility. There is a clear list in my mind that if something comes up, I know who I'm calling and they're there for me and I'm there for people too. So you can become that person for somebody and also collect them for yourself. Number six, join the Australian College of League Wives. They are our pink professional advocacy body. Number seven, join the Nursing and Midwifery Association in your state. They have legal representation that they can offer you as part of your membership to help you deal with these kinds of scenarios.
[40:19] Number eight, always take a witness and copious notes when dealing with APRA and associated regulators. They are human. They get things wrong. The process is not friendly when you go through it. You will have to fight for justice and you'll need legal representation, witnesses and support people to do it. Don't think that you can do that on your own. It can be an aggressive process and I recommend that you have people around you and legal advice. And that is part of the idea behind the Nursing Women Free Association membership, if you're here in Australia. Number nine, keep showing up to places where your people are. Things like the Convergence of Rebellious Midwives or online the Assembly of Rebellious Midwives. That's actually point 10. That's my shameless sales pitch. Join the Assembly of Rebellious Midwives online if you want to find a community of midwives who are going to be there for you in these scenarios. Okay.
[41:19] Now, there's another thing that might happen to you when you get so good that you can't be ignored. And if you believe Cal Newport, this is what's more likely to happen. You know, I'm talking about the dire small percentage of midwives who get reported and bullied and harassed. I mean, we are working out how common that is. My suspicion is that the great ones are harassed all the time. But anyway, here's what's more likely to happen. You will love your job. You have invested so much into it that leaving it becomes so unattractive so you'll have longevity, you might actually land a job that you really wanted and that's what Cal Newpoint Port says, that if you can't become really good at your job all of a sudden new jobs open up to you you get new opportunities so someone might offer you an opportunity because they've noticed how good you are and they can't ignore you, your workplace might notice you and offer you an opportunity at career expansion or leadership or a position that allows you to be a changemaker. So you unlock new career opportunities that you hadn't considered. It's happened to me where people approach me and say, hey, we're working on this project. Would you like to be involved? Not something I would have ever thought of applying for. And it landed in my lap because somebody noticed the work that I was doing and somebody might notice the work that you're doing.
[42:49] If you become so great at your job and you've collected skills and knowledge and you've been a craftswoman, craftsman this whole time, you might pioneer something amazing. You might change someone's life. You will change someone's life. You can't be an excellent midwife and not change someone's life. That is going to be a positive side effect. And you might land in a leadership position and have an opportunity to make real and meaningful change beyond yourself.
[43:19] Now, that's what I spoke on at the start of the convergence of rebellious midwives 2025, encouraging everyone to just be really good at their job. And then I encourage people to join BiteBub if they fit the bill. And 80 out of the 520 midwives who were there put their name on that list. So that's 15% of attendees at the conference.
[43:42] And maybe some of you are thinking, well, maybe they deserved to be reported or disappointed. Maybe there was a good reason they were reported. And that's what I'm looking to find out. What are the reasons? Why are these midwives, who are clearly invested in their careers, because they put the time and energy and money into coming to the Convergence, why are they being reported? Now, at the Convergence 2025, after I spoke, Ina May Gaskin spoke. I know. And in part of her talk, she spoke about the history of midwifery and the conscious and active efforts that were leveled against midwives in an effort to eradicate them as a profession. There were, at Sula, professional efforts to ensure the extinction of midwives so that women have no choice but to accept medical management at birth. But we just keep bouncing back and every time we do, there's a renewed effort to suppress us. And that's what I'm referring to as the modern day witch hunt. Just a repetitive cycle of recovery and professional recognition bookended by efforts to prevent midwives from thriving and as a result preventing women from thriving.
[44:56] Now, Ina May Gaskin delivered her talks via recording and of course they're available to purchase if you couldn't make it to the conference. So go to my website, nataliethenigwife.com. If you want to see the recordings for the Convergence of Rebellious midwives 2025 you can purchase those Ina May gave us two hours of original recorded content to to showcase at the convergence very generous she's so incredibly sharp she's in her mid-80s now and this was part of her talk just documenting the repetitive suppression and attempts to eradicate migratory this is not a new idea.
[45:34] Now, Barshi Hazard, who is a human rights lawyer and spends her time advocating for human rights in childbirth, showed us actual legal cases at the conference which explicitly undermined women's right to have maternity care free of violence. And she gave example after example where the legal system has not upheld the law for the protection of women in childbirth, which was layered upon the words of Ida May, who listed the ways that midwives were prevented from caring for women throughout history, which was layered upon my suggestion that great midwives are systematically targeted. And this all wrapped into a bundle to paint a picture of how deep the problems in the maternity care system are. They spend across professional, legal, human rights, across time and across experiential realms within maternity care. So this made me realize that we can't solve all the problems that we see in front of us. We can't be so good that we're going to be able to even solve all the problems just within our reach. But what we have experienced at the Convergence is that together we can act as individual puzzle pieces to work towards a collective goal, just little by little together. So the fight for women's rights in society is not new.
[46:59] This one, the fight for women's rights in childbirth, though, it is ours. This is our little piece of history to help improve. There are women who came before us who fought for things. Women throughout history have had to fight for tiny incremental gains in other areas. You know, it's only around 100 years ago that Western countries allowed women to vote. And that was hard fought.
[47:23] And at the conference, I wore a shirt that bore the quote from Emmeline Pankhurst, a British activist for women's voting rights. And the quote read, I incite this leading to rebellion and in this maternity care system to be rebellious is to be so good at our jobs that we recognize care that is disrespectful and not evidence-based and the problem is is that many of the disrespectful and non-evident evidence-based practices that you start to recognize when you become a really good midwife are woven into the fabric of the maternity care system and into your workplace culture. So when you start to act against disrespectful maternity care and non-evidence-based maternity care, it appears that you are trying to pull apart the fabric of your workplace and of the maternity care system and people don't like it.
[48:17] So being a rebellious midwife means being an excellent midwife because excellent midwives practice evidence-based care that's respectful to women. And even though it's countercultural in our maternity care system, if you want to love your job, you'll have to focus on loving and caring for women. And the only caveat is to remember that this will put you in a situation where your work can't be ignored. It won't be ignored. and it might attract really positive attention but it might also attract unwanted attention.
[48:49] So just I'll list them one more time. 10 steps to protect yourself from hostility. Be really good at your job. Record and document your greatness. Write reflections of your big career events. Create evidentiary proof that you are a brilliant midwife. Maintain close friends and colleagues who will be there for you when you encounter hostility. Join the Australian College of Midwives. Join the Australian Nursing Midwives Association in your state. Always take a witness and copious notes when dealing with regulators. Keep coming to the Convergence of Rebellious Midwives. Oh my gosh, that is where you can be replenished. And the shameless sales pitch, join the Assembly of Rebellious Midwives. Overline. That is today's episode of the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. And please do join Bite Club if you are ready to help us explore the theories of the modern day witch hunt the link in the show notes and i will see you in the next episode of the great birth rebellion
to get access to the resources for each podcast episode join the mailing list at melaniethemidwife.com and to support the work of this podcast wear the rebellion in the form of clothing and other merch at thegreatbirthrebellion.com follow me mel @melaniethemidwife on socials and the show @thegreatbirthrebellion all the details are in the show notes.
This transcript was produced by ai technology and may contain errors.
Ā©2025 Melanie The Midwife
