Eileen Bedwell, Senior Midwife

Above: Eileen with baby Gracie

I’m at the fab new medical centre in Sturminster Newton talking to senior midwife Eileen Bedwell. ‘Seeing a baby born is still a thrill and a privilege,’ she tells me, ‘and contrary to how childbirth is often shown on the telly, most are not dramatic, they’re lovely.’

Eileen, pictured here with Gracie, one of her Sturminster Newton babies, should know. She reckons she’s helped some 6,000 babies in her 32 years working as a midwife. As for her own birth, that was in 1953 at home in a small village just outside Newcastle. She went to the local school, then grammar school, then trained in general nursing at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, before going on to Glasgow where she qualified as a midwife in 1976. Jobs followed at Durham and Chester until in 1988, married and with three children of her own, she arrived at Dorchester Hospital. Today, as a senior midwife, she works both on the maternity unit at the hospital and out in the community, her patch being the Sturminster Newton and Stalbridge area.

Eileen’s basic week is 37½ hours, though more often than not she works longer. She works a shift system and since babies come at all hours that means working nights too. ‘I live my life at the beck and call of a bleeper. It’s not uncommon to get called out to a home birth at 2am – babies seem to like coming in the small hours,’ she laughs. ‘Nine times out of ten you know the woman you’re going to and that’s brilliant – and dads are great at making bacon butties!’

Of course, it is not just about delivering babies. Eileen will have seen the prospective mother through the newly-pregnant stage, talked about and organised scans, and basically sorted out a care package that will see the mother right through to the birth. And with the mum safely delivered, post-natal clinical checks on mum and baby will follow along with all the advice the new mum could wish for on how to look after the new arrival.

‘Most women prefer to have their babies at the maternity unit at Dorchester which, I have to say, is a superb unit. Home births account for around 5% of the total these days,’ she tells me. ‘We use the same equipment at home as we would use at the unit, we have gas and air but no strong painkillers are given. If the labour proves difficult in any way or even if the woman changes her mind at the last minute, it is straight off to the hospital.’

At this point in our conversation I feel it my duty to ask about the place of dads in all this, in particular about their place at the moment of birth. She laughs, then replies: ‘A few are quite cool, calm and collected, but lots of dads get very enthusiastic – they get very carried away when it comes to pushing, and shout instructions, and this, I have to say, is not always helpful. A few faint, but then they are only men [this, I hasten to add, is said with a broad grin on her face]. But it’s important that they are there. Their support is vital.’

Listening to Eileen talk it is obvious that for her each one of her mums is seen very much as someone in need not just of medical care but emotional and psychological support as well.

But being a midwife is not just about cuddling babies. ‘The job can be sad at times, though thankfully the happy times very much outnumber the sad,’ says Eileen. ‘It can be a rollercoaster of emotions. You cry with a woman who has lost her baby and you go on to the next woman and laugh with her because she is happy having just given birth to a lovely healthy baby. You sometimes have to terminate a pregnancy and on those sorts of sad occasions you have to help the couple to get through. Sometimes you get a run of sad things.

Then your colleagues support you, and they help you get by. Thankfully, the happy times are very much the norm. It’s a demanding job both physically and mentally and a lot of the time you’re tired. Staffing levels are low. Many of the younger midwives don’t have the staying power I’m afraid, and they leave. Forty percent of the workforce is in the 40 to 60 age group.’

I ask about how she spends her time outside work, how, in fact, she manages to recharge her batteries. ‘I have three grown-up kids, one in Newcastle, one in Birmingham, and one at Reading University, plus my mum is in Newcastle, so I spend a lot of time on motorways!’ she explains. ‘I love Dorset. Its countryside and coast are so lovely. I walk and cycle when I can find the time. At the moment some of us are in training to walk 100kms in 30 hours in July for Oxfam and the Gurkha Welfare Fund. It’s for Trail Walkers UK and at the moment I am helping to raise sponsorship money, baking cakes, that sort of thing.’

It is time for Eileen to go off to a nearby village to pay a call on a mum-to-be, but before she rushes off I am keen to pin down just what it is about this demanding job that keeps her turning up for work every day. She looks puzzled, as if she had never given the question a thought, then replies: ‘Helping women through pregnancy, birth and afterwards is never boring, you never quite know from one day to the next what might happen. Then there are the mums, so it is very much about people and they are never the same. And then there is the thrill of seeing a baby born. That for me is still the most wonderful thing.’