Nathalie Schiebel Letter to the Editor
We need more midwives, not fewer
The Ottawa Citizen Thursday, November 27, 2003
Nathalie Schiebel says midwife-attended births, including those of her two daughters, Josephine Crone, 1, and Lara Crone, 3, save the health-care system money because they are the cheapest way to deliver low-risk babies.
CREDIT: Rod MacIvor, The Ottawa Citizen
Re: Midwifery service was not reduced, Nov. 22, and Midwifery cuts will lengthen waiting lists, Nov. 18.
I was profoundly dismayed and saddened to read that the Ottawa Hospital has chosen not to renew the temporary privileges of three midwives.
I had midwifery care for my two pregnancies, and I was impressed by the clinical skill, caring, and dedication of my midwives. Given the waiting lists for midwifery care, and that midwife-attended births are the most cost-effective in the low-risk category, more money will be saved in the long term by making the privileges of these three midwives permanent.
Women on the waiting lists who are unsuccessful in attempts to secure midwifery care must turn to a family doctor who delivers babies or to an obstetrician: Both are more expensive to the health-care system.
Midwife-attended births are more cost-effective because women who are being cared for by a midwife have the option of giving birth at home. My two daughters were born at home, so I did not require the services of obstetricians, anesthesiologists or nurses. I provided my own pain management, labour and delivery room, and post-partum bed.
Although I would never have considered a home birth had the excellent facilities of the Ottawa Hospital not been available to back up my midwives, I was happy not to have to make use of them.
I agree that obstetricians should focus on high-risk pregnancies and complicated deliveries. If moving low-risk births out of tertiary-care facilities allows them to do this and saves money, that’s great. But all low-risk births should be considered as a whole.
More money would be saved by increasing the number of midwives with privileges at The Ottawa Hospital, thereby reducing the number of low-risk births taken on by obstetricians and family doctors. As the waiting lists show, the demand is there.
Nathalie Schiebel,
Ottawa