Midwives benefit from good postnatal care, too

Appropriate, timely and responsive postnatal care can help women and families negotiate the major life transition that childbirth brings. However, women's experiences of postnatal care are often negative and our increasingly biomedical approach to birth means that greater emphasis is placed on antenatal and intrapartum care at the expense of postnatal care. Good postnatal care is essential not only for women, but for midwives too, and our failure to acknowledge the significance of birth, and our contribution to that event can diminish us as people and midwives.