By Ashley Wiebe

New provincial regulations will see midwives’ skills expand

Dec 14, 2018 | 3:40 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — More and more women are looking for a personal experience during their pregnancy and are choosing to have a midwife.

Earlier this week, the Alberta government set new regulations, which will take effect in the new year and allow midwives to expand their skills.

“We were planning on having a hospital delivery and low and behold, he was coming kind of fast!” said Shanelle Martens. “And so if I had not had a midwife, I would have had my husband delivering my baby at home, guaranteed.”

Martens knew she wanted a midwife for her second pregnancy after hearing about the experience a friend had.

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“[It’s] not cookie cutter and it was ‘let’s talk about each individual person as a person’ and ‘how is your pregnancy going’,” she said.

“Having a care provider who is listening to them, who is respecting their choices, who’s working with them as a team to have the outcome that they’re hoping for,” said Erin Giles, a registered midwife with Grassland Midwifery.

Marten and other clients also appreciate having someone available around the clock.

“It means being available really to whoever needs us, getting up any time of the day or night if needed to go to do assessments and answering the phone,” Giles added.

“Every once in a while you’re going to have that time at three in the morning where you wake up and you have to hurry out the door and you’re driving to get to the hospital to meet that woman,” said Ashley Reid, who also works out of Grassland Midwifery as a registered midwife.

For many women, midwives are a valuable resource throughout their pregnancy, but if they needed specific things like a prescriptions, those had to be filled by a doctor.

But earlier this week, the province announced new regulations, which will allow midwives in Alberta to expand their services.

“We can do things like induce labour or get them the pain medications that they need in the hospital without involving extra care providers like obstetrician or family doctors,” Reid said.

“What we’re going to be able to offer is just actually even more of a complete picture of care than what we do now,” Giles added.

It’s that level of care Giles’ said clients expect.

“We can have that conversation on a level of already knowing those people really well and having a good respect for their choices and being able to even make suggestions that we feel would fit them,” she said.