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Ask any professional speaker about their ‘oops’ moments as they have presented and most will name at least one! I’d like to share mine with you from yesterday.

I was speaking to midwives and student midwives at a study afternoon for Hull Midwifery Society on perinatal mental health. We heard from Laura first from the Hull perinatal team – I describe their great work in my latest book in the chapter on pre-conception counselling.

After a tasty afternoon tea I began my talk on ‘Making perinatal mental health personal’. The first part was giving my story and the second part was concerned with personal skills that I feel midwives can use to help the people in their care. One aspect of this is the use of positive words and language. The general idea to to use phrases that say what you would like a person to do rather than avoid, e.g. Say ‘please remember’ rather than ‘don’t forget’.

I gave that example and moved onto another one. I picked up the open bottle of water I had on the stand with me and said “so suggest to someone to ‘hold the cup carefully’ rather than ‘don’t spill it’ “. As I spoke, for some stupid reason, I tipped the full bottle towards myself and literally soaked myself!!!

I am not talking of a splash – I mean SOAKED!! I had a white, cotton top on and it was so wet it became transparent! I was so glad that all the audience was female!

Everyone laughed – including me. What did I do? Someone passed me a handful of tissues. I dabbed the drips ….and carried on with my talk.

I discovered later than those Dyson handryers make an excellent job of drying clothes.  My top came out crease free!

I’ve had IT hiccups and mispronounced words by mistake, to a humourous outcome in my 11 years of presentations – this was the first, and hopefully last, that I shall ever throw water at myself!

I still can’t believe I did it!

The event concluded with listening to Julie Wright, a perinatal midwife from Leeds. She described her role and shared some great resources. One that was new to me and sounds useful is BUMPS  – best use of medicines in pregnancy. This is an excellent resource for expectant mothers and healthcare professionals. Julie is going to be speaking again at another of the events I am involved in on 11th November in London. It would be great to see you there.

And I shall not be tipping water over myself!

Elaine 🙂