"There’ll be times when it’s exhausting. But those little moments when your baby just looks at you and smiles –
there’s no other feeling like that. Bank those bits of gold. They carry you through."
Rachel has been a Bump & Baby Club instructor since 2018 and currently teaches our classes in Purley. With 18 years as a midwife, she’s passionate about supporting informed choice and the friendships that develop in her classes. We caught up with her to chat about her career, her favourite moments in class, and what being a mum herself has taught her.
What inspired you to become a midwife?
I’ve been a midwife for 18 years. Originally I had a place at university to study Philosophy and English literature, but I decided to take a year out and worked as a physiotherapy assistant at Croydon Hospital. The hospital offered the chance to shadow another department for a day, so I went to maternity. It just clicked and I thought, “This is what I want to do in life!” I applied the next day and a few months later I started training to become a midwife.
What was it about that day that made you sure you wanted to be a midwife?
I really liked the autonomy midwives have and the way they can follow a woman and her family through their journey. I was shadowing a midwife and we looked after a woman in labour. Just seeing the raw strength of the woman, then having the privilege of watching birth for the first time was incredible. Seeing life come into the world! To witness that was amazing. I still get that tingle, that excitement when babies are born. And seeing a mother meet her baby for the first time – I love it – it still gives me joy.
Has there ever been a shift at work you’ll never forget?
When I was home birth lead midwife, our team supported three births in one night, going from house to house. We finished at about six in the morning and went to a greasy spoon café in Crystal Palace for a massive cooked breakfast! Driving home I felt such satisfaction. I couldn’t believe how much had happened in one night, and the sheer joy of it.
What do you enjoy about teaching Bump & Baby Club classes?
I love being able to share information. At the beginning of the course I always say that there’s no perfect birth, it’s about making decisions that are right for you, and that gives everyone peace of mind. Somebody’s ‘Plan A’ might be a planned caesarean, while someone else might choose a home birth or want an epidural as soon as they can get it. I get so much satisfaction from giving parents evidence-based information, so when they walk through those hospital doors or when their home birth midwife comes to see them, they have the information they need to make informed choices.
I love seeing everyone at that first class, when they’re a bit nervous and wondering, “Are these going to be my people? Are they going to be my friends?” Then, by the end of the course, I’m having to say, “Come on, guys, let’s get back together!” after group work, because they’re all chatting away and having a brilliant time!
I love that Bump & Baby Club really respects the instructors’ autonomy and values the experience we bring. As a midwife, there’s so much I can draw on from being there with women and their families, knowing what it’s actually like to support them through birth and I really enjoy bringing that into my classes.
What are your favourite moments in class?
I love the practical baby care. I play the sound of a baby crying on my phone while everyone practises soothing their towel babies (dolls made from towels). Everyone’s laughing, mucking in and having a go at winding, changing nappies and soothing them. You can see it suddenly feeling real and them thinking, “We’re going to be doing this!”
I also love the social side. The other day I spent ages packing up and doing my admin. When I finally walked into the lobby to leave, everyone was still there chatting and having a great time. They hadn’t made it to their cars. I love seeing those friendships form. My children’s grandmother still meets her antenatal group for pudding evenings! Some of my group members might be friends for a season of their life, but some might be friends for life.
What do you love most about being a midwife?
I love supporting informed choice. If a family’s situation changes, it’s also about supporting parents through that, so they feel really held, nurtured and empowered. It’s their body and their birth; it’s their journey.
I also love supporting newer midwives. It gives me so much satisfaction to see them grow in confidence and competence. For example, I’ll share my knowledge about using ‘biomechanics’ to support a woman in labour, and they’ll come back and say they tried it and it worked. I love that.
What is biomechanics in birth and how do you bring it into your classes?
It’s about using movement to help your baby move through the pelvis in labour, and to help with comfort and relaxation in pregnancy. The pelvis can move, and different positions can change the space available for your baby. We use movements like kneeling and lunging, and techniques such as a side-lying release, with the aim of helping the muscles around the pelvis relax and easing tension in the surrounding tissues. We can use different movements during pregnancy and at different stages of labour and for birth. And they’re not complicated; they’re quite easy to do.
In my classes, we talk a lot about using different movements and how partners can support during labour too. We talk about positions and massage and ways partners can help with comfort and relaxation. Labour is an active process, so movement is something I really like to explore.
You might be thinking, “I’m having a planned caesarean – this isn’t for me!” But it’s also about comfort and finding movements and positions that help relieve pressure and aches in the pelvis and lower back at the end of pregnancy.
Can you tell us about your work as a midwife and some of the experience you bring to your classes?
I’ve just moved from being preceptorship lead midwife at East Surrey Hospital, supporting our early career midwives, to being birth centre manager at Epsom Hospital. It’s a job I’ve done before, when I was at Croydon a few years ago. I loved supporting newer midwives, but I missed being hands-on with women and their families. Really, that’s been my passion all the way through. I’ve loved different roles for different reasons. I’ve worked as an independent midwife, and I absolutely loved being home birth lead at Croydon. It was incredibly satisfying, but working all hours just wasn’t sustainable long-term. I really hold those memories close, though.
And I absolutely loved the team I’ve just left. Watching our early career midwives at their graduation, I felt like a proud mum! You’ve seen them from their first day, and then you see them thriving and progressing. That’s really satisfying.
I have lots of experience with planned caesarean births, supporting families with their birth preferences so they have a really positive, calm experience. I also worked for years on labour ward, supporting families during unplanned and emergency caesareans, so I know the importance of helping parents feel calm in a potentially stressful situation. And I’ve worked as a senior midwife in theatre for caesarean births too.
I’ve also been a breech clinic midwife, including supporting my sister! I’ve got experience supporting both caesarean and vaginal breech births. And I’ve worked in a midwifery mental health team and done additional courses in counselling.
What was it like to support your sister?
That was a really special highlight. Her second baby was breech, and she had three ECVs – where they try to turn the baby into a head-down position. The first two didn’t work, but the third did, and my nephew Reuben turned around! A couple of weeks later, she went into labour and had a lovely water birth at the birth centre. Being there as her birth supporter and having that experience as a breech midwife to support her through it was a really beautiful moment.
What was becoming a mum like for you?
I’d always wanted to be a mum, but the beginning was hard. I’d planned a home birth with my daughter, but she was breech, which we hadn’t known. We’d both had a bit of an infection too, and I needed an emergency caesarean after a very quick labour. She also had tongue-tie, and we struggled with feeding at first. Even as a midwife, with all that knowledge and experience, it was different doing it myself. It’s like riding a bike: you can read about it and watch videos, but actually doing it is another thing.
I remember sitting with her at three in the morning, the house quiet, feeding and thinking, “We’ve finally cracked it!” She’d hold my finger with her tiny hand. Those little moments were beautiful. She became my world. Work had been everything to me, and my life changed completely. Then I had my son, and I had a very quick, two-hour home birth!
How did you find going from one child to two?
I thought going from one to two children would be easier than it actually was. My daughter was just under two, had stopped napping at 18 months and was full of energy. She had FOMO about everything! Then I had my newborn boy who fed really frequently. I found it really hard. I actually had perinatal depression with my second and had lots of support from the perinatal mental health team for a while. I went through a few dark months and came out the other side.
My children are teenagers now, but they still need me. I love watching them grow into their own people. My daughter is as tall as me and mothers me quite a lot! They’re my world. They really are.
What’s the best thing about motherhood?
That unconditional love that you can’t really describe. It’s different from the love you have for a partner or anyone else. It’s that real depth of love that you feel. Everything else comes second to my kids. Being a parent is such a privilege. Don’t get me wrong, it’s also demanding. I can still get very excited about a week on the beach, sipping cocktails with my partner, while the children are with their dad! It’s hard, but it’s the best.
What advice would you like to leave expectant parents with?
I would say trust your instincts. In my classes, we go through the BRAIN acronym for informed decision-making and we talk about what feels right for you. That can be completely different from everyone else in the room. I’m a big believer that what’s right for one person can be totally different from another.
And be kind to yourselves. We all feel overwhelmed at times, and having a baby is a huge deal. Becoming a parent is a whirlwind of change. There’ll be times when it feels overwhelming, like sitting there feeding your baby at four in the morning, but you get through it and when you look back, you might think, “That was beautiful.”
I always say I wish we had classes for parenting teenagers! There are different challenges all the way through. Having a baby changes your life completely, but it’s awesome and amazing too.
And I would say, “Bank the gold.” There’ll be times when it’s exhausting. But those little moments when your baby just looks at you and smiles – there’s no other feeling like that. Bank those bits of gold. They carry you through.
