Midwives provide quality care for mothers, babies and families in hospitals and in communities around New Zealand.
Midwives have an important role in improving health outcomes in our communities. They understand that every childbearing woman deserves to give birth within a safe and supported environment for herself and her baby.
On this page:
Find Your Midwife
September 2013
Find Your Midwife is a new website service that allows women to quickly and easily find an available midwife in their area.
The Find Your Midwife service has been developed by the New Zealand College of Midwives with funding from the Ministry of Health. If you log onto the website www.findyourmidwife.co.nz now you will see how user-friendly it is. With a few clicks of a mouse, the service enables women to locate local midwives available on their due date, rather than having to make multiple telephone calls. The website:
- has a due date calculator
- searches for midwives by due date, locality, preferred place of birth (hospital, birthing centre or home)
- shows only midwives who hold a current Annual Practising Certificate, are members of the New Zealand College of Midwives and are currently practising
- provides up-to-date information - each midwife’s month-by-month availability is regularly updated
- provides written profiles of each midwife and contact details
- has a ‘print list’ option for women who don’t have a computer
The site includes information on New Zealand’s midwifery-led maternity care system and contact details for feedback and further information or if you would like to order promotional material. We are sure that the service will be a great help to women.
If you have any queries or would like some promotional material, please email us at findyourmidwife@nzcom.org.nz or visit our website www.findyourmidwife.co.nz
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Midwife Newsletters
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Midwifery Links
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2015 Neo-BFHI Core Document
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NZ College of Midwives
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Open Book - Retained vaginal swabs following childbirth
Please find below the second December Open Book publication which details findings from review of cases reported to the Health Quality & Safety Commission (the Commission) involving retained vaginal swabs after childbirth. It includes a summary of evidence and prevention strategies for providers to consider.
Please share and discuss findings with relevant staff to determine any actions required within your own organisations to prevent a similar occurrence.
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Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill (six months paid leave and work contact hours)
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Revision of the Quality and Leadership Programme
In 2013 a survey of midwives showed that although there was general support for the QLP programme there was still poor alignment between QLP, DHB Performance appraisal/review and Midwifery Standards Review, and duplication of effort acts as a barrier to uptake.
On 14th May 2013 DHB midwife leaders, MERAS and NZNO representatives met and it was decided to undertake a review of the programme to increase alignment and national consistency. Thank you to those of you who have given feedback
Subsequent to the meeting the document has been reviewed and updated over a series of teleconferences and meetings between the stakeholders. So what’s new?
- The confident domain has been streamlined to ensure that midwives who have completed their orientation/familiarisation, have an APC with no restrictions and are participating in the midwifery recertification programme should be able to achieve confident domain relatively seamlessly.
- Peer review has been removed from the confident domain and is replaced by MSR
- Confident domain will be re-validated annually at the performance review/appraisal, as opposed to a separate 3 yearly process.
- Leadership domain now requires midwives to undertake a leadership project and report on this annually. This is consistent with the increased need in the DHBs for quality improvement champions.
- Leadership domain requires peer review from 2 colleagues and 2 LMCs with the aim of assessing leadership qualities and enhancing relationships across the workforce.
- The leadership domain requires a leadership reflection as opposed to the current leadership interview.
Overall the document has simplified the step from competent to confident and increased the step from confident to leadership. Evidence requirements have been merged with other processes such as MSR and performance appraisal/review. It is hoped that midwives will find the new document easier to read and follow.
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Screening Matters - Newsletter of the National Screening Unit
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Vitamin D in Pregnancy and Infancy
The Ministry of Health has released advice on sun exposure for pregnant women and infants, together with identification of those high risk of vitamin D deficiency and recommondations for vitamin D supplementation. Get more information below:
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Voluntary Bonding Scheme 2014
Oct 2014: Payments to reward medical, midwifery and nursing graduates who agree to work in hard-to-staff communities and/or specialties, and medical physicist, sonography and radiation therapy graduates who remain in New Zealand.
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