Midwives granted ability to induce labour, administer contraceptives
EDMONTON Alberta midwives will be able to prescribe drugs to induce labour, administer contraceptives and give patients vaccines under new regulations announced Wednesday.
“It’s about making sure … your midwife can give you the full range of supports that will help you and your pregnancy,” said Health Minister Sarah Hoffman at a news conference at Lucina Birth and Family Wellness Centre, a birthing facility in Edmonton’s west end.
It means patients will be able to go to midwives for access to pain medication, antibiotics, and birth control, among other services.
Registered midwives take on clients from when a pregnancy is known to six weeks postpartum. Midwives are paid to deliver a “course of care” which includes various services for a pregnant woman, from psychological screening to nutrition advice to help with breastfeeding.
“Midwives didn’t say they wanted to be paid more for doing these additional services,” Hoffman said. “They said … ‘We want to be her primary care provider through her pregnancy.’”
Hoffman said there won’t be an added cost to the province, and the College of Midwives of Alberta will be responsible for rolling out additional training.
In Budget 2016, the NDP allocated $11 million in new funding over three years to expand the number of midwives available to expectant mothers. The profession will receive about $49 million in government funding from 2016 to 2019.
There are 126 registered midwives in Alberta, said Nicole Matheson, president of the Alberta Association of Midwives.
“We are graduating 12 new midwives every year from Mount Royal University, and we continue to have midwives move from other provinces,” she said. “We’ve had exceptional growth.”
The increased scope of practice will help women in rural and remote communities, she said.
The association’s latest data found there were about 1,200 families on the list requesting midwifery services.
“There’s still unmet demand,” Matheson said. “We are chipping away.”
Cassondra Evans, president of the College of Midwives of Alberta, said midwives have been limited in what they can do for patients during labour.
“One of the big things … is the induction and augmentation of labour,” she said. “At the moment in Alberta, midwives need to consult with an obstetrician to be able to get that going, which can really just lead to delays in initiation.”
Other changes will allow midwives to look at fetal ultrasounds.
“A lot of this will just be less appointments for our clients,” Evans said.