Witnessing the art of woman--centred care by an exceptional mentor.

Using Gibb's (1998) reflective cycle, I have reflected on an experience I had as a first year student midwife working in the community setting. I met Hannah (name changed in accordance with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2008) guidelines relating to confidentiality) on several occasions and found that she had a great relationship with my midwife-mentor, despite her wishes falling outside of trust guidance and her feeling pressurised, by some, not to have a home birth. I analysed the relationship between Hannah and my midwife-mentor using three pairs of concepts that Lundgren and Berg (2007) considered to be essential for building sustainable, mutually-productive relationships between women and midwives: differenceness--support uniqueness; trust--mediation of trust; and participation--mutuality. I concluded that mimicking and adopting many of my mentor's characteristics, as shown in her relationship with Hannah, would benefit me and the women in my care.