Day of the midwife

Today is the international day of the midwife. A special day to celebrate the special women who help us birth our babies!


I just finished reading Babycatcher, Peggy Vincent memoirs on her midwifery career. I must say that the book brought up a lot of emotions, especially the last chapters where she describes how a lawsuit leads her to close her private practice and stop doing homebirths. I think this book does a great job showing how midwives make birth a normal part of a women's life, how they help mothers have healthy pregnancies, healthy births and happy babies. How they offer the space and the intimacy for women to labor on their own terms. It also shows how society's twisted views make labor and "delivery" such a drama when it should't be. 

At a time when the cesarean epidemic is hitting an all-time high and where more and more women are feeling cheated, or worse traumatized by their birth experiences, it is about time to bring back midwives in the picture. It is time to encourage the midwifery model of care. It would save millions of dollars and lead to less interventions, less trauma and better outcomes for babies and mothers all over. As it is sometimes put, OBs "deliver" babies when midwives help women "birth" their babies. 

We really need to rethink the way we consider pregnancy and birth. We need to bring back the "normal" into the picture. Because women and babies deserve much better.

I find it encouraging that there is now a project to open a birth centre in Vancouver, a centre that would offer an alternative to women who don't need to birth in the hospital but don't feel comfortable birthing at home. Read more about this great project on Bloom Community Midwifery's site or on their facebook page and take their survey.

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