Pandemic increases demand and pressure on B.C. midwives
Posted May 4, 2021 10:40 pm.
Last Updated May 5, 2021 2:03 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Throughout the pandemic, midwives have supported B.C.’s growing families and have helped reduce the burden on hospitals. And for the first time in Vancouver, the city has proclaimed May 5 the Day of the Midwife.
Registered midwife Sarah Knowlden put the idea forward to the city to finally recognize the hard work midwives have been putting in, which left some burnt out and “absolutely stretched to the brink.”
And Knowlden thinks by celebrating the workers, it’s also a great opportunity to get the word out about what they do, especially since there are only 319 registered midwives in B.C., and they help deliver a quarter of all the babies in the province.
“We are responsible for about 26 per cent of the deliveries in B.C. That’s the highest number in Canada and the second-highest number in North America,” she explains. “There is a real crisis for our services right now.”
One in five midwives in B.C. report wanting to leave the profession, and between January and April this year, 17 midwifery clinics have posted open positions.
Midwives have struggled in the past to get government support.
“I think it’s a numbers game. Because we’re only about 300 province-wide, we’re a relatively newly integrated profession. There’s still this great work for us to do to raise awareness for what we do,” Knowlden says.
Home births are among the things midwives facilitate and some mothers say the pandemic cemented their decision for an at-home birth.
“I didn’t want to panic about being restricted by, ‘what if the hospital changes their rules and then my husband suddenly can’t come?’ or, ‘my doula or birth photographer can’t come?’ Not to mention being in a hospital in a time of pandemic, being anxious about what’s potentially coming home with us,” Savannah Walsh, Motherhood Blogger, explains.
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Parents also can meet their midwives more often than their family doctor.
“It’s just that continuity of care when you work with a midwife: you work with a midwife team, there’s three or four of them, you get to meet all of them, and they also care for you post-partum so that’s super attractive,” Kathleen Stanyer a mother who gave birth at home during the pandemic says.
Knowlden says midwives are currently in contract negotiations with the government to get benefits that match their colleagues’ expectations.
“As a smaller group, we just have to raise our voices a little bit louder in order to get a similar treatment,” she says.
