Blogging

'Baby wrapped in a green blanket', by our Poppy

Today's brief comments come out of thoughts sparked by Sarah Stewart, who is a tech-savvy teacher-midwife based in New Zealand, and a compulsive blogger. Sarah is the person behind the Virtual International Day of the Midwife - a 24-hour webinar now in its fourth year, bringing together midwives and students literally around the globe.

Sarah has announced to her readers that "I am currently in the process of writing a paper about this blog and how I use it to reflect, and how the wonderful comments you leave enhances my learning. I plan to submit it to an academic journal for publication. ..."

I also use blogging to reflect and work through issues in midwifery. I love the fact that blogs are in the public domain, because I consider that anything I have to say as a professional midwife should be able to be said openly. In that sense I also welcome critique of anything I have written or said. 

When I first started writing blogs, the topics I chose were simply the topics I had discussed with women who came to see me, who wanted me to be their midwife. As I wrote I used the language and the discussion that I would bring to professional clinical discussions.   Since those early blogs I have commented on and explored my reflecting on many issues that come up in the life of a woman who is also a midwife, a mother, and a thinker.

My mother used to say, "If you always tell the truth, you don't have to remember what you said." That sort of truth-telling is what I am referring to in finding my voice on the www.

In June 2007 I wrote a brief post 'Natural birthing in Australia today'. A few days later I titled my post 'The culture of birthing'. I wrote:

I am asking for a total change in the culture of birthing, changing the focus of all the care from the provider to the woman. We seek a new culture that recognises the natural order in pregnancy, birth and nurture of the baby as superior to any artificially contrived system. ...

The culture of birth will change only when women reclaim their authority for their own bodies; only when the message that ‘birth is not an illness’ is heard. The role of maternity professionals will then change from being predominantly carers of sick people to agents of health promotion, working together to enable women to improve their health through pregnancy and birth, and to have strong, healthy and resilient families.

These words were true then, and I am happy to publish them again today, almost five years later.  I expect I will still say the same thing in five years' time! 

^^^^^^^^

I wonder if I am unusual in that I have not embraced other forms of social media to the degree that I am happy to use blogging?

Yes, I have a fb account, but the only people I have 'friended' are family and a few close folk who are something more than 'friends'.  I don't like the implications of a stock-standard 'friend' category that seems to me to be on offer there. It doesn't ring true to me.

Some years ago I decided to swallow my pride and have a go at twitter.  I lasted about 2 days! [that's probably an exaggeration - I'm sure it's all recorded somewhere!]  I felt that I was playing an inane game that was without direction.  I was offended by the word 'twitter'.   If I was going to write my thoughts they needed to be of more significance than the incoordinated noises coming from the canaries in a cage!  (I did name the canaries Tweet, Twitter 1, and Twitter 2)

That's all I'll say about today's social media.  My name appears on other systems too, but I haven't a clue how to make them worth while for me or anyone else.  Perhaps someone will tell me I am wrong - that there are wonders in store for those who find the key? 



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