ABSTRACT
The role of the midwife in the community postnatally may have been idealised. Given the above vignette, it can be seen that this is not always true as, even then, community postnatal care was seen as the Cinderella service of maternity care. Because of this, I became a community midwife in order to provide a holistic continuity of midwifery care from antenatal through home birth to postnatal care. This crystalised after I attended my first home birth as a student midwife. I have likened this to my Damascene conversion! But that was 22 years ago. In many areas now, women are being told that they can’t have a home birth as there will not be a midwife available to come out to them when they go into labour even if they have booked a home birth.
