How your experience could help improve diabetes care in pregnancy

Dr Julia Clark, registered midwife and qualitative researcher at Sands, explains how a new project is bringing together the experiences of midwives, healthcare professionals and bereaved parents to help improve care for pregnancies affected by diabetes – and how RCM members can get involved. Diabetes in pregnancy is becoming increasingly common. For the women and […]

Count the Babies: Why We Need to Talk About Postnatal Staffing

I vividly remember starting many postnatal shifts by taking a sheet of A4 paper and folding it into squares, one for each woman and her baby.   As the shift went on each square would fill up with maternal and newborn observations, feeding plans, medicines, jaundice checks and notes on anything I needed to follow up.   […]

Making your voices heard at Labour Party Conference 

Political party conferences are one of the most important opportunities we have to influence national policy on maternity services.  For three long days, from the first events on Sunday to the last fringe meetings late in the evening, the RCM team has been in every room we could get into. Our aim was simple – […]

Conversations that can make a difference: Tackling inequality in maternity care

Julie Richards, RCM Cymru Director, reflects on the conversation, challenges and calls for action from the Equity in Maternity zone at the Wales Mastering Diversity Conference.  There are some conversations that shouldn’t end when a conference does – which was very much the feeling at this year’s Wales Mastering Diversity Conference.  At this year’s conference, […]

RCM standing proud together: Celebrating Guernsey Pride 2026

Last weekend, I had the privilege of joining colleagues and members at Channel Islands Pride in Guernsey, standing alongside communities, organisations and allies to celebrate diversity, equality and inclusion. Pride is always a vibrant and uplifting occasion, but it is so much more than colourful flags, music and celebration. It’s an opportunity to recognise the […]

Rooted in Care: Celebrating the Midwifery Journey

About the Author Renny Ully is an Indonesian midwife with more than 20 years of experience across community, primary healthcare, hospital and educational settings. She holds a masters degree in midwifery from Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand, and worked in Qatar for 6 years before moving to the UK, where she now works as […]

World Sepsis Day: what do midwives need to know?

September 13th marks World Sepsis Day, an initiative raising awareness of one of the world’s most urgent health challenges. Sepsis impacts millions of people around the world each year, and is associated with 1 in 5 deaths worldwide. Of these figures, maternal sepsis contributes to a significant proportion of pregnancy- and childbirth-related deaths, with a […]

Routes into midwifery: Should midwives be nurses first?

As a young lecturer, I was lucky enough to teach on the first Direct Entry degree programme in the UK.  Students on the programme were very different to me. I had gone into midwifery from nursing because there was no direct entry route at that time. Students on the direct entry programme were often mature […]

We cannot celebrate rising numbers of midwifery registrants while the future workforce is under threat

Fiona Gibb, the RCM’s Director of Midwifery, on why this year’s NMC registration data is a warning.  Every year the NMC publishes a snapshot of who is joining, staying and leaving the professions it regulates.  When I read it, I look for one thing above all else: are enough midwives coming into the profession? This year, the answer is no.  The […]

Is the ICM Congress a Midwifery compass for maternity leaders, researchers, educators and clinical practitioners?

It is a month since we all returned to our countries following the 34th ICM congress in Lisbon, 12 -18 of June 2026. More than 3000 midwives from all over the world gathered to discuss, develop and advance the midwifery profession. Of course, there was strong representation form the United Kingdom, with more than 200 […]