[Lizzo]

I don't know if I can handle stitching someone up. I am a wee bit squeemish...like I can't watch surgeries on TV squeemish, blood doesn't bug me, nothing like that gets to me. But I worry about stitches...
Did anyone else have this issue? How'd you get over it?

 

[homemademomma]

the first time i saw a suture job, i almost passed out. in general though i do fine with other people's blood and wounds (not my own though lol!) it doesnt mean you cant be a mw, but it is something you will have to work on. even if you dont suture regularly in your practice, you will still have to deal with blood and tears.

 

[Charmie981]

I think we all have things like that. For me, I was very worried about sticking someone with a needle, and putting my fingers into someone elses's body. Three years ago if you had asked me about those two things, I would probably have said that they were big issues for me but I was hoping I could get past them and become a midwife anyway. Obviously, I did. Suturing was easier for me because I didn't do it until the very END of my training, and because I had seen quite a few in the course of the previous two years. I had also learned to draw blood and give injections, so I was over my fear of sticking someone with a needle by then also, which made suturing easier for me.

By the time I started doing vag. exams, I had witnessed so many of them, and done more than a few paps, that it wasn't something that freaked me out anymore. The observations and paps were the baby steps leading up to the vag exam and it seemed like a natural progression.

I think a good teacher will ask what your biggest concerns are regarding midwifery skills and will work with you to get through them.

Fortunately, suturing isn't something you'll have to do a whole lot, so you don't have to be 100% comfortable with it. As a client, I'd be worried about hiring a midwife who ENJOYED suturing

.

 

[homebirthing]

The midwife that I am watching doesn't suture. She very rarely has a second degree, but if she does, it heals o'naturale. She knows how, she just doesn't think it is needed almost all of the time. If it is bad, then she shouldn't be doing it. She doesn't do blood draws.

 

[5terre]

I'm in the middle of a career change to nursing (eventually CNM). Definitely something I had never thought about!

 

[Persephone]

I'm a pretty squeamish person. (Definitely not midwife material), but at my last birth, I held the mirror for the midwife while she did some stitching.. and honestly, it wasn't that bad. It was kind of weird seeing someone repair a human the way I'd repair a hole in a shirt or something, but there was so much blood down there, that the stitching wasn't really that bad. (It was the insertion of the IV I had to close my eyes for.

Both the midwife and the mom laughed at me (in a kindly manner)).

 

[lostintranslation]

Thanks for posting this, i have the same concerns

 

[Mamajamz]

I used to have a thing about needles. For me, the anatomy classes where we had to dissect cured me.

PLEASE DON'T READ ON IF YOU ARE UPSET BY ANIMAL RIGHTS ISSUES

I was horrified the first few times I had to open up a cat and cut through its rib cage, etc. I will say one thing, though, that after having to do that every day (summer class) I became immune to needles/going through flesh and tissue and the like. Also, through observing several needle sticks and suturing in different situations helped a lot. After a while you just get de-sensitized. I remember the first time I walked into a room with a laboring woman who was completely naked with her butt up in the air. I remember that feeling of embarassment that I was seeing something that I shouldn't be looking at.

It didn't take long at all before I didn't even "see" if a woman was naked or clothed I was so comfortable with it because your focus changes from an awareness of personal space/emotional awareness to one of clinical relevance and practicality. I can easily see how doctors completely lose that personal touch and awareness that it is a person on the other end of the needle/scissors/whatever. I think ideally you go through the phase of learning the "clinical mindset" whilst holding onto your humanity at the same time such that by the time you get to needing that skill you can honestly do it as a form of care for your patient, blending objective skill with personal awareness. I think if you are worrying about these things before you have had the training and exposure and de-sensitization process you are getting the cart before the horse.