Report from the 3rd Biennial Midwifery Expo: Welcome to the Real World held at the Hilton Hotel in Brisbane. A joint production with the Australian College of Midwives QLD branch and C&N project people on 5-7th November 2008.

The Hilton Hotel held an atmosphere of great excitement with the first day of the Expo. With over 340 delegates registered for the 3 days, the day slid smoothly by from registration. Due to the large numbers of delegates the cocktail hour was held in the foyer, rather than poolside.

Thursday started in a shakey fashion, when delegates arrived at the Irish Club for breakfast, only to be met with long queues and a food shortage. However, we recovered some good will when Professor David McIntyre delivered an excellent update on Thyroid disease and Vitamin D in pregnancy. The rest of the day continued to delight delgates with the variety and interesting presentations delivered by presenters. Some thought were controversial and others cheering and delighting!!
Our Thursday evening dinner proved most entertaining and interesting with many delegates enjoying the Bollywood dance presentation by 2 very energetic dancers. Getting into the spirit ourselves with painted henna leg, back and hand ink drawings, as well as colourful Sari's. Interesting photo's were put up for viewing the next morning.

Friday came fast but the food queues and shortage of food prevailed again at breakfast at the Irish Club. Promises of better supply of food and delivery, didn't live up to expectations!

Associate Professor Leonie Callaway gave a great informative session on obesity and pregnancy. Again, the variety and interest of the days program by the midwives was fantastic. Please view the programs evaluation report for further analysis of presentations by delegates as there were a number of 'gems' presented.

Download a copy of the Evaluation Report 65kb

Australiasian Midwifery Expo 2008 Evaluation Report

Memory Sticks:

At the end of the conference some 15 memory sticks were not picked up. These were posted off in the envelopes delegates left with their addresses. We had emails and calls from 4 people who's envelopes arrived without the memory stick. Copies of the conference presentation were sent out to those 4. However, one midwife received 6 memory sticks in her envelope and returned 5 to us. If you have not received but paid for your memory stick - please contact us by email cnproject people@hotmail.com and we will dispatch off your memory stick. We are most sorry for any inconvenience.

On the Expo memory stick - one presentation was not available on the day and not included on the stick, Pauline McGrath's Midwifery and genetics:
Key issues for current practice. This presentation has been added to this site and can be now downloaded.

Download a copy of the presentation 807kb

Pauline McGrath's Midwifery and Genetics

Overall, we rated the Expo a great success and believe the calibre of the program was very high, offering variety, updates, new research knowledge for the delegates discussion time. The Hilton food was thought fantastic by some and poor by others - it's hard to get it right. Our AV technicians were superb! Our trade exhibitors reported back to us, saying they had a good time and had good exposure to the delgates to tell them about their products. The exhibitors are great supporters and their contribution to the Expo was greatly appreciated. Like the delegates, laughter yoga was thought of -that one should be exposed to once in your lifetime! We hope the simle lasts on your face until next time.

We look forward to seeing you again in 2010.