Rebecca Wade - Community Midwife
Rebecca Wade, a Community Midwife in the Borders
The birth of a child is a time of joy; a time of high emotion and reflection. Sadly, when things do not go as expected, it can also be a time of pain and loss.
Dealing with all these emotions can be challenging for health professionals like Rebecca Wade, a community midwife in the Borders. She has been helped by an initiative from NES called Spiritual Care Matters. It aims to help all staff in the NHS respond to the spiritual needs of patients and is based on the understanding that everyone, whether religious or not, needs support, especially in times of crisis.
Rebecca took part in a half day workshop, designed to help staff develop more consistent responses to such needs. "In midwifery there are great highs and lows and people express spiritual needs in either of these places," said Rebecca. "Sometimes it is difficult to know how to meet someone on that same level."
She works with very vulnerable families who may have faced traumatic episodes in their own childhood or adult life. The birth of a child can be an even more intense emotional experience for them. "The workshop gave me the confidence to make addressing and helping people with their spirituality part of my practice," said Rebecca.
"It has also made me listen much more carefully to what people are saying - what they are really saying - and not just skating over and tending to focus on the physical aspects. Often the physical aspects go along quite nicely but most of the problems arise in people's emotional responses or their relationships. "We don't always have the answer and sometimes there isn't a straightforward answer. All we can do is walk alongside somebody as they go along and find their path."
