Call the midwife — she’ll answer
Midwifery is making a comeback and it’s easy to see why. Besides having its profile raised by the popular BBC series, “Call the Midwife,” the profession has also won new fans in the Fries household.
My wife and I used the services of Willow Community Midwives in Penticton to see us through the births of our two children, the last of whom arrived Feb. 5.
For the uninitiated – which included me until my wife got pregnant for the first time about three years ago – midwives handle most aspects of normal births, from making sure babies are healthy in the womb to delivering them into the world.
That means monthly checkups in the early stages and weekly visits as the end drew near, plus house calls afterwards.
Along the way, midwives can prescribe medications as needed, recommend treatment options for pain and various ailments, and consult with other medical professionals as required.
The biggest benefit of using a midwife, in my view, is that you develop a relationship with her (or him, I suppose), which goes a long way to making a difficult, stressful and intimate process a little bit easier.
In our case, we were fortunate to have Susie Lobb on hand for both births and the bulk of our checkups leading up to the big days.
Prior to the arrival of our newest addition, my wife began having contractions at 1:30 a.m. She called Lobb, who did a consultation over the phone, and then had us meet her at the hospital right away.
(Lobb actually beat me to the delivery room, as I dropped off my wife on the maternity ward, then had to park the car and find my way back into the hospital, which, being the middle of the night, was locked down like Fort Knox)
Once there, Lobb – one of just four registered midwives in Penticton – arranged to have an anesthesiologist give my wife an epidural.
She then coached my wife through labour, and also later called in an obstetrician and pediatrician just to confirm everything was OK with mom and baby.
The alternative to all this is receiving service at the Maternity Clinic at Penticton Regional Hospital, which I’m told is excellent, except you can never be sure what doctor you’re going to see on what day.
Either way, there is no cost, as midwives are covered under the B.C. Medical Services Plan.
Such is not the case in all provinces and territories, some of which offer midwives in certain regions or not at all.
Midwifery has been regulated as profession in B.C. since 1998, and there are currently 362 registered practitioners in the province, according to the College of Midwives of B.C. That’s up from 81 just 15 years ago.
According to the Midwives Association of B.C., its members were involved in 21 per cent of all pregnancies in the province in 2015, and the 9,000 midwife-assisted births that year were 42 per cent less likely to result in Caesarian sections.
The association also estimates that increasing midwife-assisted births to 35 per cent of the provincial total would result in savings of $60 million by 2020.
Midwifery is one of the oldest and noblest professions out there.
You can see now why it’s making a comeback.
Joe Fries is the city editor of the Penticton Herald