Friday, April 16, 2010

Face of Birth

This looks like a very interesting documentary about choices in childbirth. New Brunswick is gearing up for legislation, for which many women are ecstatic. Sadly, it's a double-edged sword. If we look at the example of Nova Scotia, which recently became legislated, we see that although midwives are a bit more accepted and midwifery care is publicly funded, there are also problems that need to be ironed out: midwives must be hired by the province, which means an extreme shortage of midwives, they are only available in certain hospitals, and you must live within an hour or so of the centre, any "high-risk" mothers are not accepted, midwives must follow certain policies and guidelines that restrict care and are put in place for malpractice reasons rather than health reasons, are under rule of OBGYNS (again, who are under the rule of a board made up of business men and insurance companies, not health authorities), etc. Likewise in Quebec, though they've made wonderful steps forward, are still seeing a huge shortage of midwives. Only about 1 in 4 women who want midwives are able to have one. Hiring a direct-entry midwife is not an option as they are not allowed to work, nor are midwives allowed to work privately (generally, every province and country have different rules).

Though legislation is an interesting concept and will help with the financial burden of homebirth, it is not the haven for which women are hoping.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFWH_IZWulE

6 comments:

K said...

The movie window is too big, you can't see all of it. :)

Emilie said...

Oh! Ooops, I'll try to fix it.

Emilie said...

Okay, you'll have to press on the link, but it should get you there. Thanks for letting me know, K!

Abigail said...

Hmmmm...interesting. I was just talking about this with a friend today. Will midwives be able to work privately and just charge feees that aren't covered by medicare, though?
It's too bad that the legislation isn't really going to be what many will imagine, but at lesat it's a step in the right direction and maybe it will open doors for further "birthing" reform. =)

Emilie said...

It is a step in the right direction, but it will mean that for a certain amount of time (months? years?) there will be a gap and many women will be left out and given fewer choices than they have now. Quebec started out with homebirth being illegal, but now it's being done. There's still lots and lots of work to be done!

Kate Waller said...

N.B. is definatetly in the darkages when it comes to mid wifery. I was blessed to have a L&D nurse who was a trained midwife in Scotland, when I was in labour with Erik. She was awesome.