Rather than receive maternity care from the usual hospital procedure, some women want a midwife.

Regan Holm was due to deliver her baby earlier this year, and knew from the start that she wanted a midwife to care for her. However, she explains midwives are not readily available for everyone in the City of Possibilities. 

"This is especially so in the Southern Health-Santé Sud region," says Holm. "They turn away around 70 per cent of women that apply for midwife care. So, there's a lot of women that want this and there are not enough midwives to provide services. The midwives would love to help all these women. They want to give this service. That's what they're there for."

She says there's simply not enough government funding for them. As a result, Holm says she wrote a frustrated e-mail to the Portage District General Hospital about the issue, seeing as she had to go out of our health region to get a midwife.  As a result, she's organizing a group to push for the service locally.

"I was very lucky to get one," notes Holmes. "It's like winning the lottery, and I asked them why they don't have midwives in Portage. An obstetrical community group was created to try and help get us to the point where we will have midwives in Portage. We have an awesome opportunity right now because there's a new hospital built and they're making a special ward now in the hospital that is only labour and delivery."

Holm says the diversion taking place at the Portage Hospital on the weekends for deliveries also makes this quite a timely issue.

"Midwives would fill a lot of gaps where there are gaps. They would take pressure off of doctors, and doctors could be in other areas that they need to be in. They would help with the shortage of nurses, as well. It just feels like you would solve a lot of problems that we have. I'm not the only one who sees that, but it's not going anywhere right now." 

She explains the reasons women choose to have a midwife include the continuity of care given, noting it's second to none. Holm says she's talked to many women who have transferred from an OB (obstetrics - the regular system) to a midwife halfway through pregnancy, or had one pregnancy with an OB and then transferred for their second pregnancy to a midwife. 

"They said the difference of care is night and day," notes Holm. "It's not necessarily a doctor's fault that the care is night and day. Doctors, let's say, would take on 40 patients per month, where a midwife would take on four. So, they are a lot more focused on your pregnancy. They get to know you as a person. Your appointments are 45 minutes rather than 5 minutes. Care is just very different, and then you also have options that a doctor might not be able to give. Midwives can allow you to have water births because they are trained in how to do that."

She adds midwives also allow you to have a home birth, noting they're trained in care outside of hospitals, as well. 

"Midwives are only for low-risk patients, but that's why we have doctors," says Holm. "Then midwives can take the low-risk patients. Doctors can take the high-risk patients."

Holm says her efforts have moved the hospital to start the ball rolling, and the community group was created, seeing as the hospital didn't realize that the community wanted midwives until she spoke up. 

"What we do is look over obstetrical procedures, when it comes to patient care, and we rubber-stamp them," says Holmes. "We determine if it works for one patient and perhaps not in the best interest of another patient, necessarily. 'Is that just procedure and policy, or is that actually patient care?' Recently, we went through all the discharge packages that they hand out after a woman is discharged after birth. The lack of information and continuity within the packages across the Southern Health-Santé Sud region was pretty drastic. Some were just giving out a paper. Some had nice little samples of vitamin D. We went through all of that and we created a list of what would be ideal in a package to try and create continuity."

She notes every woman should get the same care package throughout the region. 

Holm says they want the support of Portage, noting they can't be the voice of the community if they don't know what the community is saying.

"I know what my group that I'm surrounded with is saying. I've asked. I've reached out to other people. I'm actually walking arm-in-arm with the Prairie Pregnancy Support Centre, so they've talked to women that come through their doors, as well, to see what people want, and what women are needing."

You can lend your support by reaching out to the Prairie Pregnancy Support Centre which is starting to take surveys and getting numbers to hand over to Southern Health-Santé Sud. 

 

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