A Mother’s Day special ! Florence Wilcock, my ‘partner in crime’ on the #MatExp project has already written a very popular blog, writing as a mother who happens also to be an obstetrician – or perhaps vice versa. Who knows? People are so keen to put everything and everyone in boxes – and Flo and I and so many more are desperate to throw the boxes away!
Unless of course they are pretty little boxes like the one I received yesterday with this beautiful Mother’s Day gift (complete with little shoe !) Thank you Flo – that is SO lovely.
Look out for us wearing our matching necklaces (Flo has one too) at some interesting forthcoming events… !
Well, on Wednesday it was NHS Change Day and obviously a big highlight of our #MatExp campaign – indeed it got mentioned in the Guardian as one of the top 10 campaigns!
I wrote a blog about what we were planning to do and we had a brilliant time together with Flo’s colleagues at Kingston Hospital.
The hospital was buzzing with different activities, including us doing a Whose Shoes? taster session with the Executive Management team and another in the antenatal clinic.
It was a real honour that Dr Helen Bevan and colleagues from the NHS Horizons Team dropped in to see what we were up to at Kingston and do some filming as part of the 12 hour Changeathon, which hopefully we will be able to share with you shortly. Meanwhile, the photos give a taster of our day…
- Fab images by Carrie Lewis, New Possibilities
But Florence ensured that her roles as obstetrician and mother blurred a bit more (and took many of her colleagues by surprise) when she did something truly wonderful in terms of making people think, really think about the experience of the women they are caring for. She walked in their shoes – which, on this occasion, involved taking off her shoes…
It is brilliant that Flo has taken the time and trouble to reflect in such detail and share the learning…
Graphic by Carrie Lewis, New Possibilities
Florence Wilcock writes: For NHS change day I wanted something that made a statement that said “#MatExp has arrived, take notice, we are improving maternity experience, get involved!” I couldn’t quite think of the right action until I saw a twitter exchange with Damian Roland back in December and watched a video where he described his spinal board challenge from NHS Change day, 2014. I had a light bulb moment thinking what would be the maternity equivalent? Lithotomy!
Lithotomy is when we put a woman’s legs up in stirrup; sometimes this can be essential for an assisted birth with forceps or ventouse (suction cup) or if stitching is required. But sometimes we use lithotomy position for normal birth or when stitches are minimal.
In our #MatExp Whose Shoes? workshops, my favourite card is one based on Gill Phillips’ Mum (now aged 93) being made to take castor oil, despite telling the midwife it would make her sick. And it did. The card asks what is common practice now that will similarly seem wrong or odd in the future: the unanimous answer given at Kingston was lithotomy.
I started to think about whether we use lithotomy more than we should and wondered what does it feel like? Although I have two daughters, they were both born by emergency Caesarean so I do not have personal experience of lithotomy although I know some of my midwifery and consultant colleagues already do. It seemed the perfect challenge. I chose to do try it for one hour as that is a quite realistic time that a woman might be in that position, sometimes it can be less, but sometimes it can be far longer.
I decided to wear a hospital gown and some running shorts as it didn’t feel quite right to do it in normal clothes. The first thing I learnt was that the hospital gown was stiff and itchy, I couldn’t get it to do up properly without assistance and when I had finally tied it I sat down to discover it felt as if I was being strangled by the neck line so had to loosen it off immediately. I adjusted the back of the bed but found it quite hard to swivel round & reach the buttons to do so. We put on a fetal heart monitor which just felt like a normal waistband, a blood pressure cuff and stuck an IV line on my arm. We also used a doll to give me a bump. I know not all women will have all these attachments but many will. During this time Tom, who was going to follow me with the challenge, commented that I looked anxious from my body language before I had even begun and it was true I felt quite apprehensive with all these people running around being aware I was about to be totally in their power as it were.
We were finally ready for ‘legs up’! The first thing I discovered with a slight shock was that the stirrups were very cold which I hadn’t expected at all. The other observation was that the people started adjusting my legs without asking me. I thought one leg was going to fall off as the stirrup wasn’t tightly fixed enough and I was in a slightly twisted position which I asked them to adjust. Once that was done I felt reasonably comfortable and relaxed. They took my blood pressure with an automated cuff which was surprisingly painful. I decided to have a breech baby and we took a few photos.
Twenty five minutes in we decided it was time to take the bottom of the bed off which we would do for an assisted birth. I felt immediately more precariously positioned and vulnerable like I might fall off of the bed. The midwives put my legs higher and the bed much higher off the ground which was the right position for delivery without causing them back problems. This felt quite odd to be high up in the air or as one midwife put it ‘face to vagina’ so that she could see what she was doing at eye level! I definitely could not have got down from there unaided especially not when contracting and in pain. A midwife walked into the room with the door & curtain open and I realised I could see all the way down the corridor which meant everyone in the corridor could potentially see me. Obviously this was a simulation but it did emphasise to me even more the importance of closing the door & curtain behind you to maintain privacy.
A series of people then came to talk to me. Our chief executive Kate Grimes popped in for a chat and asked if I was willing for a film crew to come in to which I agreed. By this point my bottom (sacrum) was getting pretty sore & I had neck ache. I was feeling fairly uncomfortable. My abdomen felt quite compressed and I thought if I was a woman in labour having to push it would probably make me feel quite nauseous.
I was prepared to be filmed and photographed but it was interesting that a number of people walked in and out to look without talking to me. Helen and the presenter introduced themselves to me but the camera man did not and did a series of sound checks over me and proceeded to film without even speaking to me. I am sure it was an oversight but it gave me an amazing sense of being dehumanised and re-emphasised the importance of #hellomynameis.
In the middle of this Kate Greenstock, our MSLC co-chair arrived. Kate is a doula and came straight to me and asked if I would like a foot massage. Although I thought I was fine, as soon as she asked me I realised actually that I wasn’t fine and here was a person who wasn’t laughing or making a spectacle of me but who actually cared about how I felt. That isn’t to say all the wonderful midwives didn’t but at that moment I felt like Kate and I understood one another and that this was tough and she was ‘on my side’ as it were here to support me.
She gave me a foot massage which was immediately relaxing. I have always understood the importance of support in labour but felt that women could get that from our wonderful midwives and struggled to understand why they wanted a doula too. This experience gave me some inkling of why in some situations a midwife might be focusing on other things and a doula might be able to focus on how the woman is feeling and that alone.
My hour challenge was ticking by and for a short time after the film crew the room emptied out and I was left almost alone. I felt slightly abandoned after such a crowd before and realised if the midwives didn’t come back I was rather stranded in an undignified position. It is not unusual after an assisted delivery for many people to come in and then gradually disappear leaving me as the obstetrician to suture on my own, the midwife popping in and out to get things so in a way this behaviour seemed quite apt.
The midwives returned with a nice plastic baby so that I could have #skintoskin and then my hour was up. The end of the bed was put back in place with the bed rocking as they pushed the parts together and then finally they brought my legs down and it was over.
So what was the impact of me undertaking the lithotomy challenge?
My action has certainly got others thinking and talking. I started tweeting about it in the weeks before change day and challenged a few colleagues. I’m greatly indebted to Professor Jim Thornton who was the first to accept and kicked off a whole week ahead of NHS Change Day.
I know of at least twelve others who have undertaken the challenge and five more who have promised to. The challenges are spread across 10 organisations so I am hoping for a ripple of conversations as a result. Even those that say ‘no’ learn something from asking themselves the question.
An obvious action as a result is for staff to think about trying to avoid lithotomy altogether. There are a multitude of options for positions and care in labour that we can employ. The Better Births initiative is an ideal example of a resource any midwife can access. Environment is also all important: birthing pools, stools, mats, balls are something tangible people can change. Antenatal education and preparation, both NHS and with our partners in the community, is also vital.
For us obstetricians there are certainly situations in which lithotomy is invaluable and necessary however this challenge has definitely made me think about the consequences of the length of time and how to keep it to a minimum as the position became much more uncomfortable after half an hour. Sometime in the pressure of work, helpful midwives get women ready for us in position before we enter the room and I had not given much thought to the impact of additional time or someone new entering the room when you are already in this position. The careful use of sheets or drapes to minimise exposure was also a topic for discussion.
In conclusion my hope with my challenge is that in each Trust conversations will happen that change practice and via networks and social media good practice will spread. I hope it will have the ‘butterfly effect’ where one small change in one place will result in large differences later.
So Happy Mother’s Day from #MatExp …
and remember it is never too late to take part!
Huge thanks to everyone taking part in the lithotomy challenge – a scrolling gallery of people prepared to go the extra mile. Leaders who are learning so much by walking in the shoes of people in their care.
https://twitter.com/enduringdelight/status/575952175781773312
UPDATE: And here is the Kingston Hospital #NHSChangeDay film – powerful interviews with Kate Grimes and Florence Wilcock during their experiential challenges.
And a ‘wee flash’ of Whose Shoes? at 7 mins 30!
And a ‘wee flash’ of Whose Shoes? at 7 mins 30!
Whose Shoes? A catalyst for change in health and social care 
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