WHY CHOOSE A MIDWIFE

MIDWIFE MODEL OF CARE

The Midwives Model of Care is based on the fact that pregnancy and birth are normal life processes. The Midwives Model of Care includes monitoring the physical, psychological, and social well-being of the mother through the childbearing cycle. A midwife provides the mother with individualized education, counseling, and prenatal care, continuous hands-on assistance during labor and delivery, and postpartum support.

Midwives strive to minimize technological interventions by identifying and referring women who require obstetrical attention.

The application of this woman-centered model of care has been proven to reduce the incidence of birth injury, trauma, and cesarean section.

"My dream is that every woman, everywhere, will know the joy of a truly safe, comfortable, and satisfying birthing for herself and her baby.” - Marie Mongan

WHAT IS A MIDWIFE?

Midwives are trained professionals.

Midwives are the traditional care providers for mothers and infants with expertise and skills in supporting women to maintain healthy pregnancies and have optimal births and recoveries during the postpartum period. Midwives provide women with individualized care uniquely suited to their physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and cultural needs.

Midwifery is a woman-centered empowering model of maternity care that is utilized in all of the countries of the world with the best maternal and infant outcomes such as the Netherlands, United Kingdom and Canada.

Source: mana.org

"When you destroy midwives, you also destroy a body of knowledge that is shared by women, that can’t be put together by a bunch of surgeons or a bunch of male obstetricians, because physiologically, birth doesn’t happen the same way around surgeons, medically trained doctors, as it does around sympathetic women." - Ina May Gaskin

WHY A MIDWIFE?

“At last, I should like to give this answer to the question: Why midwifery?

Midwifery is indispensable and an essential part of good obstetrical organization, since midwifery means: protection of health and normality, whereas obstetrics, as part of medicine, belongs to the department of knowledge and practice dealing with disease and its treatment.

To start a pregnancy, you need a woman and a man; their functions are different, but everybody will hope that they will love one another, respect and admire one another. To care for pregnancy and childbirth, you need a midwife and a doctor. I hope that they will love one another, respect and admire one another and will know that they are both needed and complementary.”

Source: Why Midwifery?; Prof. G.J. Kloosterman, MD

"If birth matters, midwives matter. In Europe, there are hospitals where the cesarean rate is less than 10%, and you'll find midwives in these hospitals, you'll see a lot less re-admissions with infections and complications, and you'll see a lot less injury to mothers." - Ina May Gaskin

WHY HOME BIRTH?

"Birth is a time to feel secure and safe. When a woman births at home she is in her own nest and is surrounded by colors, textures, lighting, and sounds she loves. Her own bed, where she finds solace in rest and sleep, is available for birthing. At home a woman has one or more care providers who monitor the progress of her labor and the well being of both she and her baby. Providing calm, watchful, and intimate care, the midwives are there for the entire duration of labor and birth. The birthing woman knows this, depends on it, and it helps her feel secure. She may also have her partner and family members with her - they know best what she likes and what soothes her most."

- Jill Cohen, Associate Editor, Midwifery Today

Fact Sheet: What New Research Says About the Benefits and Risks of Home Birth

- Midwives Alliance of North America Birth Outcomes Study

"For far too many, pregnancy and birth is still something that happens to them rather than something they set out consciously and joyfully to do themselves." - Sheila Kitzinger