My CUH Story - Rachel Housego

My name is Rachel I'm one of the midwives at The Rosie.

I work as the fetal surveillance midwife at the hospital and my job involves implementing the measures to save babies' lives. So I train staff in fetal monitoring, which is listening to the baby during labour, and I also do auditing to make sure we're doing the things that we are recommending.

What was your journey into this role and how did you get into midwifery?

I think some people have brilliant stories as to why they're a midwife but I didn't really know what it was at all. I had family members who are midwives and I thought when they said delivering babies they meant driving them around in a car and dropping them off! It took me years to realise what midwifery actually is.

When I was at school I did some work experience with an anaesthetist. During the day they administered an epidural for a lady who was having a caesarean and I spent the whole day with that woman. We bonded well and I thought to myself, ‘imagine doing a job where you're with someone, building a relationship for 12 and a half hours’. That was it for me.

I did a degree in midwifery at Anglia Ruskin University and then trained at a hospital in Colchester. When I left, I wanted to come and work at a bigger hospital with a tertiary (specialised care) unit so that I’d learn more. So I came here to CUH and did my preceptorship work. I then took this role as fetal surveillance midwife.

I also do lecturing. I've been qualified for nearly three years and I’ve done quite a lot in that time in terms of different things.

Can you tell us a bit more about your lecturing?

I lecture at the University of Suffolk which is one of the universities that we work with. I teach lots of high-risk aspects of the role because that's what I enjoy and it links well to my fetal monitoring.

I'm also doing my master's in public health with King’s College in London. I do a lot of lectures that relate to public health, because as midwives we are in quite a unique standpoint to provide public health knowledge to women. So I take quite an active role in lecturing on that topic for those that are at university.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

I'm a bit of a nerd and I really like guidelines, policies and rules! It's just the way I am.

When I first started I naively thought it was just delivering babies, but actually that’s such a small part of the job. There are so many specialities you can go into and I don't think I've ever done a day that's the same.

Why do you like working at CUH?

It's a big hospital so I thought that would be more daunting and more difficult to meet people, but I will be honest and say I’ve made friends here. The support systems here are so strong and you have such good people to work with, that I've loved every day.

What advice would you give to anyone that was thinking about becoming a midwife?

I would say do your research so that you understand the job, never assume it's just delivering babies because no one likes to hear that at interview.

It's a very holistic job. You're providing holistic care to a woman in the antenatal (during pregnancy), intrapartum (during labour) and postnatal (after birth) period, so I would say do your research, try and get as much experience as you physically can, whatever your age, and then just come with a positive attitude.