Call the midwife? For Gander residents, that will soon be an option

Long-awaited across the province, midwifery services will soon return to Newfoundland and Labrador as a pilot project in Gander gets underway.

"We have actually hired midwives who will be starting later this year, and we have been working closely with everyone at Central Heath and the departmentto move forward, and so Ithink we've made a lot of progress," GiselaBecker, the provincial midwifery consultant, told CBCNewfoundland Morningon Wednesday.

Becker and John Haggie, Newfoundland and Labrador's health minister, were in Gander to discuss the program at the Gander Women's Centre on Wednesday at an event featuring professionals working in different areas of pregnancy care in the area.

The upcoming inclusion of midwives inthat care in the province actually represents a return to the way things used to be, Haggie said.

"I think the wheel has turned," he said.

The first stage of a new reality for midwifery in the province is set to begin in June, when the first of three hired midwives is expected to arrive in Gander to begin a pilot project that Haggie said he hopes will become a template for expanded midwifery care across the province.

Common elsewhere

There was a time when midwives commonly delivered babies in the province, especially in rural Newfoundland and on Labrador's south coast, Haggiesaid. Over the years they faded out of use here, though they are still a regular part of obstetric care in many parts of the world, including other parts of Canada.

Haggie, whois from the United Kingdom, said he has seen the benefits midwifery care first-hand.

"As a trainee, as an undergraduate physician, Ihad to get experience in obstetrics and that was all supervised, even though Iwas a physician in training, by state-certified midwives, as they were called in the United Kingdom," Haggie said.

In other parts of Canada, midwives are integrated into the health-care system in different ways. Midwives attend 13 per cent of the births in the Northwest Territories, 16 per cent of the births in Ontario, and22 per cent of the births in British Columbia, according to the Canadian Association of Midwives.

The hired midwives will work out of the Bell Place Community Health Centre in Gander, Becker said, where they will work alongsidepublic health nurses, social workers and lactation consultants as well as in the hospital with nurses, obstetricians and family doctors.

"While midwives are primary-care providers, they'll be really working in collaborative care and supporting each other," she said.

Blank slate

The pilot project has been several years in the works. The province adopted legislation to make midwives part of the health-care system in 2015. In fall 2017 Becker was hired; at that time, Haggie said he hoped to have midwives working with Central Health by fall 2018 and across the province in 2019.

Haggie said he understands the impatience around the lack of midwifery care in the province.

I think the wheel has turned.- John Haggie

"I think that the important thing for us is to make sure that we start off with a sound foundation here in Gander," he said.

The goal is to have midwives practising with prenatal care, doing deliveries for low-risk pregnancies,assisting for higher-risk pregnanciesand providing post-natal care and support. Then once things are up and running in Gander, Becker can begin to look at other interested sites Haggie said there are at least three in the province that he is aware of.

Eventually, Gander will hopefully be the template fora province-wide program, with the goal of making midwifery available to a significant proportion of the women in the province who want it, Haggie said.

"We've got a blank slate, a huge opportunity here, but we've got to get it right."

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