Midwives play an invaluable role in women’s health during and after pregnancy. The support and care midwives give to expecting mothers deserve recognition and respect. While National Midwifery Week might be over this year, there are still plenty of ways to honor your accomplishments, promote the work you do, and give your team the recognition they deserve. Whether you’re preparing for next year’s celebration or finding ways to acknowledge this invaluable profession throughout the year, here are a few ways to celebrate midwives all year long.

Partner With Local Organizations

When looking for ways to celebrate midwives in your community, partnering with other organizations is a great start. Fundraising, promoting services, or even hosting celebrations is much easier when you work with others. The more organizations you include in your events, the more awareness you can raise about midwives and the specific work your team does within your community. Plus, building relationships with businesses now will help you pull off even greater events when big occasions come around, such as next year’s National Midwifery Week.

There are many different organizations you can reach out to depending on what you want to plan and how you want to celebrate. If you want to raise awareness about what you do, start contacting local news and media outlets. Speak to your community’s schools, universities, and other healthcare facilities for educational events or projects. Meanwhile, local businesses and community centers make great partners for fundraisers, banquets, and other community-driven events.

In addition to making your event planning easier, partnering with local organizations helps strengthen your bonds with the community, making you a more outspoken and reliable presence in your area.

Raise Money and Awareness

One of the best ways to raise awareness is through fundraisers. Whether raising money or collecting supplies, these events help bring the community together and fund crucial projects and services for your local area.

There are several fundraising opportunities for you to create or join. You might partner with a local food bank or shelter to help deliver meals and supplies to low-income mothers—expecting or otherwise—in your community.

Alternatively, organize a supply drive for your facility or other relevant programs, like birthing centers, in your town. Raising money and gathering midwifery equipment will help your team and other professionals across the community continue the important work they do.

Celebrate What You Do

Your team works hard to take care of pregnant women and new mothers all year long. The work you do has an incredible impact on your community. There’s no wrong time to recognize that impact and celebrate all you accomplish throughout the year. Here are a couple of ways to honor your midwives and show the community how special your services are.

Shout Out the Year’s Accomplishments

You and your team do a lot throughout the year. A celebration or day of recognition is the perfect way to remind your team of how important they are. Celebrate the year’s accomplishments by compiling statistics. How many births did you attend as a team? How many healthy, happy mothers did you serve?

You can also reach out to past patients and gather positive feedback, thank you notes, and updates on the babies you helped deliver over the past year. Gathering information like this is a great way to show your team—and the wider community—how much of a positive impact you have on the women you serve.

Host an Annual Banquet

Honor your team and the work they do with a celebratory banquet. Send a poll around your team to see what would be most popular—breakfast, lunch, or dinner—then rent out a venue and plan your event. Invite midwives in your community for a free meal and recognize them in front of the community. This is also a great chance to raise awareness for your team and educate the public on what you do. If the event is successful, turn it into an annual celebration that your community can look forward to every year.

Educate the Public

Everyone has at least a vague idea of the work midwives do, but what about the specifics? How much does the community know about the specific programs in your location? Educating others and increasing awareness about the importance of your work is one of the most consistent ways to celebrate midwives all year long. If you’re looking for ways to get started, here are a few ideas.

Create Posters and Fliers

Educational materials are a great way to spread information throughout your community. Create eye-catching posters or informative pamphlets that contain statistics about your specific facility, quotes from women you’ve helped around the community, or a history of midwifery itself. This is also a great way to promote your services and bring more women into your facility for the care they need.

Give Presentations

Presentations are another great way to spread information about who you are and what you do. You can start small by asking for time at other departmental meetings within your facility. However, there are also countless opportunities to share your information with the rest of your community. See if there are any career programs, health fairs, or similar events happening that you can attend. Even without these occasions, you can still work with local schools or medical facilities to set up presentations and share knowledge about midwifery and the services you provide.

If you want to go all out, you can even host a women’s health day. Invite women from all across the community to attend, learn about midwifery and other crucial women’s health services, and potentially receive free care, like Pap smears, breast cancer screenings, and more. In addition to promoting midwives and their work, this is a great way to help more women in your community. You can even turn your women’s health day into an annual event so that women in your community continue to benefit from your services year after year.

At Cascade Health Care, we understand the importance of midwifery and the work midwives do every day. That’s why we provide a comprehensive collection of midwifery supplies online for easy and accessible shopping. Whether you’re buying for your health center or your practice, we have everything you need to take care of your patients and make a difference with the work you do.