ANTENATAL JOURNEY

Antenatal Journey to Motherhood

Antenatal Journey to Motherhood

Introduction

Over the years, midwives have been practicing to provide care for women in progressively more technological environments. They have sought to keep up their skills in being the professional lead for healthy women with straightforward and uncomplicated pregnancies. In addition to this, the midwives have also developed latest skills in caring for women with intricate obstetric and medical conditions. The main purpose of this paper is to make an analysis on three different summative activities.

Activity 6.3: Role of a Midwife in Relation to the Care and Support Required for Jane and Her Partner John

Case Background

The case is about Jane who is 9 weeks pregnant and is worried because her sister had a baby with Down's syndrome. Thus, she is unsure about the proper screening procedure which will be effective for her. Her partner John is also unsure about her having any type of screening. Thus, this section is the description of the role of mid wife for the purpose of assisting the couple about making decision on the appropriate option.

Different Approaches/Skills A Midwife May Use To Enable Them To Effectively Make An Informed Decision

Many people believe that the role of a midwife is to simply help in delivering babies; however this is not the case. Midwifery actually involves caring and supporting the parents and the baby both prior to and later than the baby is born. This is the reason why midwives are considered an important source of information, support and advice for the expectant mother and father and play an exceptionally significant role even after the baby is born. A midwife helps in critical decision making about proper care during the pregnancy period, labour and finally the postpartum period. It is a very skilled vocation that provides uninterrupted care over a number of months. It is a fact that midwifery care has several advantages over obstetrical care, since the midwives are absolutely trained in normal birth deliveries with expert knowledge on promoting natural birth. (Likis, 2009, pp.49)

The fundamental role of a midwife is to identify the requirements of the parents in their transition to parenthood, with the purpose of enhancing the support and education provided for them. Hence, in this case Jane and her partner John will go through a major transition, since the baby will affect all areas of their lives.

They will require seeing a midwife on a regular basis both during antenatal and postnatal care. Their selected midwife will than arrange the midwife appointments for them where the very first visit also called the pregnancy welcome visit will be at about 8 to 10 weeks of pregnancy. This visit is often called the booking appointment (Raphael, 1993, p. 12).

Around the twelfth week of pregnancy, the midwife would support Jane for her medical tests which will indicate if she has anything in her blood which could potentially harm her baby; like for instance, hepatitis B, syphilis, Rhesus factor and HIV etc. If any of these medical tests results are ...