Friday, 5 May is International Day of the Midwife (IDM) and a chance to celebrate the work of these remarkable people here at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals.
This year’s IDM theme is Together again: from evidence to reality and is a nod to the upcoming 33rd International Confederation of Midwives Triennial Congress, where the global midwife community will come together for the first time in more than five years.
It also honours the efforts of midwives at working towards meaningful change for the profession and the women and families cared for.
Over the course of the day, make sure to follow the Trust’s social media channels for more information and stories from across the organisation and use the hashtag #IDM2023
Midwife Catherine Anderton
At Blackpool Teaching Hospitals, Catherine Anderton is a Clinical Governance Midwife. She has worked at Blackpool Victoria Hospital since 1985 when she joined as a student nurse before starting training to be a midwife 1990 and qualifying in 1992.
Catherine was one of the last groups of student midwives to be taught at the hospital before training was moved to the local university.
She explained: “I have worked all over the unit but the majority of my career was as a community midwife in the Fleetwood area where I spent 25 amazing years. I love midwifery because it is about families and every day is different, no two families have the same story.
“Even after 31 years as a midwife I still get emotional when I deliver. I now work as a clinical governance midwife so I am hopefully using my experience to improve the maternity services for the next generation of families and midwives.”
Midwife Carly Hayton
Meanwhile, Carly Hayton has been a midwife for 14 years and is currently working as a Research Midwife.
This specialist role can involve promoting clinical trials, providing research updates for the wider Trust and also providing trial-specific training to clinical colleagues.
Carly says that being passionate about service improvement and evidence-based practice, she was inspired to join the research team having read last year that women were under-represented in research and needed to explore issues around women’s health and pregnancy.
“It’s been really interesting looking at what trials and studies are out there and liaising with clinical staff to find out which they would find most interesting or beneficial to the women and families in our care.
“What I enjoy most about my job is knowing I’m playing an active role in improving care and health outcomes for the future. The maternity team at Blackpool are amazing and, even under such pressure, work hard to provide women and birthing people here with the best possible care. They have been open-minded about new trials, with many completing extra training, in order for us to be able to offer access to research trials and studies.”