International Day of the Midwife (IDM) is a day when midwives across the globe celebrate what they do. Since it was first launched by the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) in 1992, the 5th May has been the internationally recognised day for spotlighting the work of midwives. The International Day of the Midwife is an occasion for every individual midwife to think about the many others in the profession, to make new contacts within and outside midwifery, and to widen the knowledge of what midwives do for the world.
The theme this year, ‘Midwives leading the way with quality care’, is significant in highlighting the vital role that midwives play not only in ensuring women and their newborns navigate pregnancy and childbirth safely, but also receive respectful and well-resourced maternity care that can create a lifetime of good health and wellbeing beyond the childbirth continuum.
Professor Hora Soltani, Professor of Maternal and Infant Health, writes about how staff and students from HWB celebrated our midwives here in Sheffield.
On Saturday 5th May, staff and students from HWB took part in an exciting cycling event following the theme of ”Call the midwife” which started in the car park of Jessop Wing (JW), vibrating Sheffield to mark the International Day of Midwives.
This amazing celebration was organised by Amanda Muller (Sheffield Midwife) to raise funding for the development of three new state of the art birthing pool rooms.
Sheffield Hallam University’s students and staff (Sally Freeman, Jo Andrews, Cath Burke, Dr Sue Peckover and John Freeman) supported this event, which was an excellent example of united work spirit among midwives and other disciplines across institutions. Several student midwives took part in the cycle ride, and many more supported the event by giving out refreshments along the route. The ceremony was opened by Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill gold medal winner and who also had her children at the Jessop Wing (pictured below with Dr Helen Baston, Consultant Midwife from JW, and Professor Hora Soltani).
Compassionate midwifery practice has a huge role in enhancing the global health. Therefore celebrating midwifery by fundraising for such good causes with active participation of so many midwives, families and other supporting professionals for midwifery as one of the oldest professions in the world, did indeed make us all proud.
This was summarised very well by The Star newspaper headline: “Midwives do city proud with cycling fundraiser”!
