Toy Midwifery Kit.

By Home Birth Aotearoa
Sep 2015

Toy doctors and nurses kits are often found in abundance, but toy midwifery kits are really not commonplace. Which is why we decided to make one for ourselves, midwives are so important to our communities, and they are one of the only health workers who do much of their work in the community, working directly with families. A lot of their role is spent in the homes of expectant and new mothers, so a portable kit is essential to their job. We think this alternative take on a toy medical kit is just the best thing ever, and a great item for working midwives to have to distract curious fingers on house visits.

Because midwife kits and even their components are not readily found for purchase, building one is very much a process of cobbling together items that to fit. No two kits will be the same, but part of the fun is sourcing items that will work well the key elements are as follows:

 

Midwife Kit:

Measuring tape

Rebozo or scarf

Stethoscope

Colostrum syringe

Pinard

Knitted placenta

Supplements

Cell phone or pager

Bag to carry it all in


This midwifery kit was put together with a re-purposed wooden Doctors set, a pashmina, real stethoscope, knitted placenta and a hand turned pinard.

We made one of these kits to raffle off at our recent conference, and as a result fielded a number of requests to purchase one, initially we did ponder making a limited run for sale, but the time taken to make them plus cost of materials made the whole thing a bit unwieldy. So instead, we decided to create an article so you could create your own!

Rebozo: Any old scarf will do, pashmina size. Midwives have traditionally used true rebozo to assist women in labour, reposition babies and new mothers to carry their babies. It’s a great addition to any budding midwife’s repertoire.

Wooden toys including syringe, bottles and phone: Finding these will depend a lot on what online stores you have access to. The ones pictured above are no longer in production, but there are plenty of similar kits available with a variety of items.

Pinard: These are a bit trickier – we had a friend turn this one on a lathe, but there are pinards available for sale from various online suppliers. Or you could whittle your own.

Working stethoscope: We got ours from a medical supplier, it’s obviously lower end for quality – but it works! Which is a huge bonus for children who want to play around with listening to their heart, bellies and whatever else they want to try. A working stethoscope is not essential, you can make a homemade one if you can’t easily find one that works.

Measuring tape: Available at any sewing supplies store, our one is a cute little piggy but even just plain tape will work.

Knitted placenta: This is my favourite piece! Pattern available online at Ravelryhttp://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/placenta-beta. Our placenta has it’s very own lovely muka tie

Bag: Any bag will do, in a previous raffle we had a lovely hand made one, this one is a fair trade hemp bag purchased online.

So have fun building your kit, we’d love to see what you come up with!!!

And if that all seems too hard, you can purchase raffle tickets from us for the kit we put together. To be drawn 1 November 2015

To purchase tickets email us at admin@homebirth.org.nz with your Name, Phone number, Region and how many tickets you want. Minimum online purchase is 5 tickets at $10 ($2 per ticket). There are 10 runner up prizes of Serene Birth Kits including a candle, essential oil birth blend and a massage wax suitable for pregnant women and babies.

Once we receive your payment into our bank account 03 1540 0512132 00, we will enter you into the draw. Only available to New Zealand residents.