WORKING AS A COORDINATOR MIDWIFE IN A TERTIARY ...

As much as coordinators want to protect the mother and baby, childbirth is unpredictable.
Polkinghorne (2004) describes techne as “the knowledge and skills needed to protect
oneself from the suffering that nature can inflict” (p.10). This techne is especially
relevant to midwifery practice. Within the tertiary delivery suite setting, it is the
coordinators’ knowledge, skills and partnership with their DHB midwives, their medical
colleagues, the mother and her LMC which offer the best path to safe care.
Coordinators reveal in these stories their need to ‘know’ what is happening in the unit.
This knowledge becomes their unique ‘form’ of techne. Once the coordinator has the
information she recognizes she needs to know, this becomes her assuredness of the best
foundation possible from which to launch into her shift. This ‘solid foundation’ becomes
the platform from which she can ‘leap into’ and ‘leap ahead’ of situations in the unit. She
also consciously and unconsciously uses her phronesis in her decision making which
Smythe et al., (2009) describe as the ability to trust in her instinctive wisdom which is
something that “can seldom be adequately explained” (p.17).
Jane is very clear regarding her need to have baseline knowledge at the beginning of her
shift:
I want to know what’s going on in every room. With the DHB midwives it’s fine
because I have every right to know what’s going on in there and it’s just a case of
being collegially friendly and saying “How’s your lady going? I believe she’s
due an assessment at such and such time”, or “look the day handover says there’s
been some issues with the fetal heart in there, how’s everything now?” It’s not a
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