Displaying an exhibit during Midwifery Week is a wonderful way to promote midwifery and raise the public's awareness about the profession as the perfect choice for women's health care. Exhibits can be displayed at a local health fair, in a hospital/ birth center lobby, at a local mall, at your city's library, or even at church and school event. Exhibits allow you to present the wonderful work you do, and become visible to those who may not know about midwifery. Remember, nobody articulates the wonders of midwifery like a midwife herself! To take full advantage of your audience, have a midwife available at the exhibit to answer questions.

For more information on creating your own exhibit, click here.

Exhibiting Tips

• Practice setting up the exhibit before the event. In doing this, you will familiarize yourself with the exhibit, check for any damage, and arrange it on the table how you'd like it presented.
   
• Be prompt in setting up and removing the display within the times specified.
   
• Consider the use of flowers or a visual aid (like balloons) to attract people's attention. The unusual will catch eyes in a large or crowded area.
   
• Bring giveaway items, as they can be an excellent tool for attracting visitors and helping them to remember you. Consider having a bowl of small wrapped candies on hand. Also think about what you can provide about your particular practice or chapter, and contact ACNM for information on obtaining items, e.g., a pregnancy calculator, "Listen to Women" buttons, or other products. Visit www.ShopACNM.com for exhibiting materials.
  

• Have a cache of relevant information on hand such as the Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health Share with Women series, pages from myMidwife.org and brochures from your practice and education programs in the area. Other helpful items include the Find a Midwife practice locator and informational brochures available at www.ShopACNM.com.
   
• Look professional. The personal appearance of those staffing the exhibit needs to be consistent with the image of certified nurse-midwives as caring professionals.
   
• Wear a name tag to identify yourself to visitors. Go out of your way to greet people, ask if they have questions and make them feel genuinely welcome. Do not rely on visitors to seek you out for information.

• Bring your business cards so any visitor you speak with will leave with your appropriate contact information.

• Remind people that CNMs do more than deliver babies. Have information on hand about the gynecological care that women of every age can receive from a nurse-midwife. For fact sheets and other information about midwifery, download ACNM Fact Sheets.
   
• Engage visitors in myth-shattering exercises such as true/false quizzes.