Stressful Childbirth Situations: A Qualitative Study of Midwives

Abstract

Stressful childbirth situations can have a long-term impact on midwives' professional and personal identities. Midwives need to feel supported and valued in order to deal with emotional stress. Incorporating clinical supervision by experienced midwives can serve as a supportive framework for other midwives.

A meta‐ethnographic synthesis of midwives’ and nurses’ experiences of adverse labour and birth events

“…It captures the nature and the environment in which the event happened. Midwives and nurses described the “chaos” and urgency of the rapidly unfolding traumatic event that required them to think quickly and respond immediate to deliver a baby safely and ensure the well‐being of the mother was not compromised (Goldbort, Knepp, Mueller, & Pyron, ; Halperin et al., ):

. …I'm running back and forth to the lab to get the blood products that we need, which is like three floors away, and I'm constantly running and getting all of this stuff.

…”

“…Further, “feeling the chaos” is characterised by a range of emotional and physiological responses midwives and nurse's report during and immediately following traumatic obstetric events. These include feelings of disbelief, shock and horror (Beck & Gable, ) at the realisation of an unexpected event, anxiety throughout the emergency (Beck & Gable, ; Sheen et al., ), fear of injury to the woman or baby (Beck & Gable, ; Beck, LoGiudice, & Gable, ; Edqvist, Lindgren, & Lundgren, ), frustration and helplessness at a lack of progress or interventions that were ineffective (Beck, ) and sadness at the potential for and reality of, a poor outcome for baby and or mother (Beck & Gable, ; Beck et al., ; Halperin et al., ).…”

“…Common physiological responses such as shaking, crying (Beck & Gable, ), headaches (Halperin et al., ), numbness (Beck, ; Beck et al., ), weakness, pain, heart palpitations, dizziness (Halperin et al., ) nausea and being “stunned” or paralysed with shock (Beck, ; Halperin et al., ). “Immediately I felt numb.…”

“…I was in shock.” (Beck, , p. 36):

The difficulty is both physical and emotional, your blood boils… and there is no blood that goes to the brain, your whole body is paralyzed from shock. I was totally in shock (Halperin et al., , p. 390)

…”

Evidence‐based Practice: What Evidence Counts?

“…In a similar vein, Halperin 6 addresses how clinicians who experience adverse outcomes in the births they attend can be marked for the rest of their lives. The exemplars from the midwives in this study easily could have remained hidden behind some summary statistics on the risk of adverse events in midwifery care or the association between such outcomes and burnout in the health professions.…”