Consumers Supporting Midwifery Care

Dear Dr. Mark Walker, Dr. Virginia Roth and Mr. Cameron Love,

As a midwifery client of Community Midwives of Ottawa, I would like to advocate for the expansion of midwifery services in hospital. I am troubled to know that there are people currently on waitlists for midwifery care who will not be able to have a midwife due to restrictions on midwifery hospital privileges. As a proportion of these people will give birth out of hospital and at the birth centre, these restrictions impact choice of birthplace, as well as choice of care provider.

I gave birth in June under the care of Martha Naime Velasquez, who is an internationally trained physician and midwife. Martha is an absolutely wonderful, kind, compassionate and knowledgeable midwife who provided me with a fantastic prenatal and labour/delivery experience. Prior to Covid-19 outbreak, I had planned to give birth at the Ottawa Civic Hospital under Martha’s care. In April, after a month of worrying and isolation due to the pandemic, I changed my birth plan to deliver at the Ottawa Birth Centre, as I felt safer and more in control of my health doing an out of hospital birth. This being said, at 35 weeks pregnant, I found out that my baby was in the breech position. Luckily, my baby flipped and I was able to deliver at the Ottawa Birth Centre – which was an absolutely wonderful experience. It is important to note that I was greatly reassured that if my baby didn’t flip in time OR if there was a complication during delivery requiring an immediate transfer, that I would be able to continue to receive Martha’s care, should I need to deliver at the Ottawa Civic Hospital.

Based on my experience, I feel that it is extremely important that qualified and experienced midwives, like Martha, are granted/reinstated the proper privileges to practice in-hospital as well. The continuance of care during pregnancy through delivery is so crucial. It is my hope that many women are able to have the experience that I had, with the freedom to choose their birthplace out of all the options (hospital, home or birth centre), as patients of registered midwives.

CMNRP recently released a Capacity Plan outlining the needs of our community and identified that “given women in the region requested increased access to midwifery services, midwifery privileging processes at each hospital should be reviewed and opportunities to increase the number of midwifery supported births at OBWC should be explored” :

http://www.cmnrp.ca/en/cmnrp/Capacity_Plan_Final_Report_2019_p4924.html

I look forward to hearing from you on this important issue.

Sincerely,
Allie Burke