Why choose midwife?

Now that I am pregnant again, I was talking at work the other day about how I don't have a midwife appointment until November 30th, when I will be 11 weeks along, because they don't have an ultrasound, only a doplar that allows you to listen to the heart beat so you have to be far enough along for them to be able to hear it.  One of my coworkers said to me, "so you are going to do the midwife thing again?  Why?"  There is probably nothing in life more important to me that being a parent and to me that begins at conception.  It means eating right, not drinking alcohol or caffeine, taking my prenatal vitamins religiously, maintaining a healthy weight, meditation and yoga to keep my stress levels down AND having a natural, unmedicated child birth.  


There are many reasons for choosing a midwife.  The Midwives Model of Care is based on four practices: monitoring the physical, psychological, and social wellbeing of the mother throughout the childbearing cycle; providing the mother with individualized education, counselling, and prenatal care, continuous hands-on assistance during labour and delivery, and postpartum support; minimising technological interventions; and identifying and referring women who require obstetrical attention to the hospital. (Midwives vs. Doctors in US Maternal Mortality Crisis, Jul, 2010).  Mountain Midwifery Center became a second home to me during my pregnancy with Peyton.  I was so fortunate that they are the only freestanding, midwife run birth center in Colorado, on my insurance plan, and within a decent driving distance from home.  The midwives and staff are all so caring, you become completely at ease just upon entering the homey atmosphere of their offices.  You get to know each and every one very well by the time your due date rolls around, so there is no chance that some random doctor on call might attend your birth.  They know you and your birth plan inside and out.  They know your husband's name, your other kids' names.  They are there in case of something unforeseen happening, but not to tell you how to birth a baby.  That's up to you. You can birth any way you like, standing, squatting, sitting, laying down, on all fours, in the water...whatever you can come up with that makes it happen.  You aren't hooked up to any IVs, you're allowed to eat and drink while in labor-I had dinner while having my first contractions.  My birthing room looked like a lodge, natural and incandescent lights, no sign of anything medical (those things in case of emergency are well hidden out of laboring Mommy's sight).  Most importantly, they are there for you and your baby.  If that means that you need to be transferred to the hospital, so be it.  No one's pride is going to get in the way of needing medical attention, as rarely as it happens.

Mountain Midwifery recently released its statistics for the 4 years since it opened.  They have a hospital transfer rate of only 12.7% during labor, and only a 6.9% C-section rate compared to the 33% nationally.  Most importantly, no deaths.  This is after nearly 1000 pregnant mamas have come through their doors.  The number of infant and maternal deaths in this country is sickening when compared to other developed nations, most of which occur after a hospital, not a home or midwife attended, birth.  According to Amnesty International USA, more than 2 women die per day from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth.  An article in Medscape Medical News in April of 2010 stated maternal mortality has decreased in China, Egypt, Ecuador, and Bolivia, but increased in the US, Canada, and Denmark.  There was a 42% increase in the US between 1990 and 2008.  C-section rates have been soaring in that same time frame.  Now nearly 1/3 of all births in the US are by cesarean.  So when asked do I feel safe having my baby somewhere outside of a hospital, meant for people who are sick, not someone going through something that is completely natural and has been done for centuries by women all over the world, the answer is yes.


So why do I choose to use the midwife model for having my children.  It's very simple.  I feel safe, I feel empowered, I feel like my body is doing something natural and I am in tune enough with my body to know what to do when, I don't need anyone to tell me when to push (or when not to as might be the case), and I feel like my child will come into the world drug free, wide eyed, alert, and I will get to hold him or her immediately.  The baby can be weighed and measured later.  After all that work, I want to hold the fruits of my labor and not let go.  This is my choice.  I will tell people about my experience if they ask, but I certainly don't judge other women for their choices.  I just feel on a whole, a lot more people would make different choices if they were more readily available and people knew that they were even possibilities.  Maybe then people would stop looking at me wide eyed like I have two heads when I tell them my son was born in the water, and no, I didn't need drugs to get through labor and I lived to tell the tale.