What’s in the midwife bag?

” Oh, your midwife bag is very small, a woman said, before I could even enter the apartment for a house call.

I was a little surprised about this question, even though I was mistaken for a  representative of vacuum cleaners with my silver suitcase in the hallway.

Funny moment.

My suitcase did not match the pattern of the usual leather midwife bags, as I find them simply impractical, because everything flies around in there. I simply found a manageable order in the suitcase worthy. My mother had inherited her old leather doctor’s bag from the 1920s, but I quickly took it back to my basement.

Back to this home visit.

This woman had really expected that I would move in with her for a few days to support her. After I had regained my temper and my outrage had turned into a friendly smile, I unfortunately had to tell her that I already had my own home and would leave after my visit.

Where the idea came from that the midwife would stay there for 10 days, I could not finally clarify.

In the meantime I don’t have a suitcase or anything similar with me, because what is necessary I have in my head and the small baby scale and the blood pressure monitor fit very well into my handbag. I replaced the calendar, which used to be so thick and got bigger and bigger, with a calendar in my smartphone thanks to the digital possibilities and I am annoyed that I didn’t think of it much earlier.

I often compare how much my daily work has changed because of the smartphone and think how much time I used to need without a smartphone. The time that I save now goes for an incredible amount of documentation, invoices and quality management.

The amount of knowledge and information that rushes in on us through the news on social media channels and blogs – can I really get them all?

I don’t know and it is a great challenge to focus and not to get lost and distracted.

As a specialist, I can easily distinguish between qualitative information and semi-qualitative or non-qualitative information, but what does a pregnant woman or a young mum do with it, not to mention opinion forming and “mother vs. mother forums”, where the triple mum shows little empathy and simply swear on “the only one away” to the new mum?

Presumably the woman here at my visit got the information that the midwife was moving in from such a forum?

 A visit at a large bookstore leads me to a similar question, because the shelves are bursting apart from guidebooks, baby books, education books and Mama

Coaching literature, so it could actually already be a separate mom and baby department. 

The other day a publisher asked if I could write a book?

Of course I was a little flattered for a moment, sure. But no, I don’t need to put a book on the shelves as well. I write a bit from my midwife’s mind and heart, that’s more fun than paperwork. Thanks, digital world.