“A lot of what we as midwives do is support women to think for themselves and manage for themselves, but we still fight against that grandmother image of what should be done in hospital,” Little admits.
She also believes the perception of being in labour is much more intuitive, adversely so, than it was years ago. Where women in the past would have put up with a bit of discomfort and gone on hanging out the washing, now they’re consulting their iPhones.
“Google has given us a lot of grief,” Little laughs. “You know there is an app that can tell you when you are in labour – as if your iPhone can tell how far dilated you are! Yet some women are using that as an indication of when they need to come to hospital.”
Dr Google also does little to prepare the mum-to-be for reality. Little, like her colleagues, would like a dollar for every woman who has said to her over the years, ‘I can’t cope. I can’t do it any more’.
“I say yes, you can do it and you are doing it.
“The biggest disappointment for us is the overuse of epidurals. It takes away that self-awareness and, I believe, that self-confidence in your own ability to manage.
“We don’t get many who say straight up ‘I want it because I want it’, but we do get some who come in and say, ‘Can I have an epidural?’ and just sit up there on their iPhone having a lovely time while everyone else is doing all the work and they are barely engaged in the process.
“But there’s a lot to be said for women having a sense of achievement when she has laboured virtually under her own steam with a little pethidine or some other drug.
“We live on our experiences. They teach us to be strong, stalwart and to cope.
“They make us the women we are.”
For a midwife, this must also at times include an acceptance of death amid so much life.
“The bad outcomes blow you away,” Little concedes.
“They absolutely shatter you. It still happens, even in a society that expects everything to be perfect.
“So yes, it can be very tough work, but we all love it. It’s a profession you can feel good about because you help bring a lot of happiness to so many people. What’s not to love.”
