Falkirk midwife retiring after more than half a century supporting pregnant mums

Janett Sneddon who has worked for the NHS for 51 years – 38 of them in Falkirk and Forth Valley – will step back from her role as clinical co-ordinator senior midwife at Forth Valley Royal Hospital on Friday as she looks forward to her retirement.

Her retiral brings to an end a long career in the NHS, which started back in 1975 when she began work as a student midwife and nurse at Bangour General Hospital.

Given her first experience of midwifery, it’s maybe a surprise that Janett ended up in the profession.

She explained: “I’d always wanted to be a midwife, but to start with I didn’t enjoy it at all.

"I only lasted three months and then went back to general nursing for three years. I then decided ‘I need to give midwifery another go’ so I took the big step and decided to move from Scotland to England to go back to midwifery.

"The reason for that was because if I didn’t enjoy it a second time I didn’t want to be resigning from the same maternity unit.

"I went to Leicester for supposedly six months to see if I enjoyed midwifery, but I ended up being there for six years.

“It was difficult getting back into midwifery in Scotland at that time as there weren’t many jobs in Scotland and lots of midwives who trained here had to go to England to get jobs after they qualified.

"I came back to Scotland in 1988 as the antenatal ward sister at Falkirk Royal. I worked in Falkirk Royal until we joined up with Stirling and then from Stirling moved to Forth Valley Royal.”

Over the years, Janett’s roles with the local health board have included working as a clinical coordinator for antenatal and outpatient clinics as well as in the early pregnancy service. Most recently she has been part of the organisation’s management team.

Having spent most of her career working as an antenatal midwife rather than on the labour ward, Janett has seen a lot of changes and advancements in midwifery in the last 50 years.

She explained: “There have been lots of changes over the years, things evolve.

“I was downstairs in our clinic one day and a staff nurse from another department came up to me and said ‘Hello Sister Sneddon, I remember you’. She was my very first long term patient after I came to Falkirk.

"She had been so upset because she was told she was going to have to stay in hospital for 12 weeks, because at that point people stayed in hospital for long periods of time, whereas they don’t now. They get to go home with medical issues that they previously would have had to stay in hospital for.”

Other developments have seen changes in services available for things like late miscarriages and stillbirths.

Janett, who lives in Falkirk, continued: “When we had late miscarriages there was nothing for these patients for a long long time. Then they started a service where, if they were a late miscarriage, they could have their babies buried or cremated.

"The Co-op undertakers were very much involved and it was actually one of the Falkirk patients that got the ball rolling for that.

"The Co-op undertakers built an obelisk at the Camelon cemetery so that patients could go and remember their babies, because there was nowhere else for them to do it.

“Then once a year we had a memorial service at Dorrator Church. Our service manager made a point of making sure there were midwives available to go so that if patients wanted to ask questions they could.

"It was amazing how many patients who had lost babies up to 50 years beforehand came forward at these services just to ask questions and get a bit of support because that wasn’t the kind of thing that happened then.”

During her career, Janett spent time as a staff side rep for the union and worked through some big changes in the service including merging services in Falkirk and Stirling and moving hospitals.

She said: “Sometimes the changes were quite big changes for the staff and they did have quite an impact on them, particularly when Falkirk and Stirling were combining, that was a very challenging time.

"As midwives we have to support the patients through the change to make sure they were getting the best care they could get and making them understand why we were doing it because we were doing it for their benefit.”

Janett is looking forward to her retirement when she plans to catch up with friends and colleagues who she has not seen as often as she would have liked.

However, she said she will miss the job and “the company” of colleagues in particular.

She said: “I enjoy being there to support and help the patients, but I think if you’ve not got the right colleagues around about you it doesn’t matter how good you’re interaction is with patients. If you don’t have the support from your colleagues, you’re not going to enjoy it. You also have to make sure you let them know how much you appreciate them.”