Véronique Lecointe: Benevolence as a standard
Véronique Lecointe, Director of the Maieutics Department at the University of Montpellier, has been awarded the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur for her career. A distinction that crowns a rich career and highlights an essential profession: midwifery. Portrait.
Was midwifery a vocation? "Originally, it was more of a default choice," confesses Véronique Lecointe, who had intended to pursue a career as a general practitioner. She was "stuck" with the medical entrance exam after her baccalauréat, and then turned to the physiotherapy, nursing and midwifery entrance exams, all three of which she passed. Faced with this second choice, Véronique Lecointe opted for midwifery. A revelation. "It's certainly not the profession for which I was destined, but I immediately discovered that it was where I belonged". Her place was then and for three years at the midwifery school in Reims, where she took her state diploma. "Three good years" during which she discovered the essence of this profession, which she immediately found a pleasure to practice. "Contact with "moms" and their newborns is a very emotional experience. I realized the extent of what we could offer them at such special moments, when feelings are heightened and emotions run high". It was this revelation that propelled her to the top of her class at the 1980 graduation ceremony.
Kindness
Véronique Lecointe then embarked on a rich and varied career that took her from Reims to Montpellier, via Tours and Paris, alternating between hospital midwifery and private practice. Even today, this profession is not always appreciated for its true worth. "Midwives practice a medical profession listed in Title V of Book I of the French Public Health Code, and are the first-line professionals for physiological births. Declaration and medical monitoring of pregnancy, preparation for childbirth, ultrasound, childbirth, monitoring of childbirth, but also preventive gynecological monitoring, contraception, medicated termination of pregnancy... The midwife can accompany a woman throughout her reproductive health journey". And always with the same intention in mind: "kindness. The idea of birth without violence is completely rooted in the midwife's training and profession, it's central". Encouraging the mother-to-be, respecting her, reassuring her, congratulating her throughout labor, accompanying her. "Every moment of a birth sequence must be nothing but happiness", says the midwife, who describes a profession in which you have to "forget yourself, not put yourself forward". Working in the shadows, with kindness.
This kindness calls for multiple qualities. "You have to know how to gain the trust of patients, which requires a great deal of listening skills," explains the midwife, who emphasizes that her profession requires very nimble hands, but also "big ears to hear properly". And the ability to find the right words to address mothers and future parents. It's a multi-faceted profession, requiring initial training in which the human sciences, psychology and ethics feature prominently among the teaching units, enabling a better approach to complex situations. "For example, the interdisciplinary management of very young girls who are pregnant without their parents' knowledge. It's a situation that every midwife has experienced at least once in her career", confides Véronique Lecointe.
Confidence in their skills
To pass on this knowledge and know-how, and to perpetuate this savoir-être, in 2006 she chose to become a teacher. "I enjoy supervising students throughout their training, from bachelor's to master's degrees," explains the deputy director of the Montpellier teaching site of the UM's midwifery department, who is also president of the National Conference of Midwifery Teachers. "I teach students that the midwife cannot alienate her professional independence in any form whatsoever , and is committed to the secrecy of everything that has come to her knowledge in the exercise of her profession, i.e. not only what has been entrusted to her, but also what she has seen, heard or understood. They must also personally and conscientiously provide the care required by the patient and the newborn, in accordance with current scientific data. To do this, they must have full confidence in their skills". Confidence that is also earned with time and experience. "A midwife is like a fine wine: it gets better with age", jokes the Champagne woman. Until it becomes a grand cru, rewarded this year with the rank of Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur for her 39 years of service as a midwife. An award-winning vintage.