This is a guest blog by Cecilia Bawden, our BSc (Hons) Midwifery graduate who’s currently working at Dorset County Hospital. She’s recently been featured in Bournemouth Echo as part of the Midwifery Department which surpassed the national average for the hospital’s standards of maternity care.

After graduating I had a short break, then started work at a hospital a little closer to my hometown, somewhere I’d always wanted to eventually end up at because of their philosophy of care and home-birth team, but hadn’t thought in a million years I’d be given a job straight after qualifying! Midwifery interviews are quite different to other fields so support from our lecturers was really helpful in feeling prepared for questions and scenarios.

Since then I’ve been settling into a new community area, new wards and getting used to new policies alongside completing my preceptorship package. I absolutely love the work environment and have felt welcomed into the team from day one, despite initially being nervous about a new place of work.

As it’s an integrated model of midwifery where I work my role varies from day to day. I have a set day in the community where I see women in clinics or in their homes, and the rest of my hours are done in the maternity ward. I’ll either be giving antenatal, labour or postnatal care- I absolutely love being able to move wards day to day to give continuity right through a family’s stay!

I don’t think I can say much more on the current situation than how proud I am of my colleagues for being so eager and willing to continue doing what they do best: protect and promote normality and safety for everyone in their care. Right from even before we received guidance to begin physical distancing, everyone I work with has been doing their utmost to ensure we’re all protecting each other.

Seeing everyone doing their part to make sure that the most vulnerable in society are kept safe is heart-warming, and truly within the ethos with which the National Health Service was founded. I truly hope that once things go back to normal that the attitude of community spirit and protection of public services continues.

Cecilia Bawden,

Midwifery graduate