Genevieve Drost will give birth in her midwife’s mother’s home sometime in the next few weeks.
The Swift Current, Sask., woman, who is expecting her first child, would prefer to be in her own home but since her midwife lives in Regina and has to stay near most of her clients, Drost has to make the move.
“I wanted the best care for me and the baby,” she said during a pro-midwifery rally at the Saskatchewan legislature May 5. “Midwives provide the care that I think women need.”
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There are only a handful of midwives working in Saskatchewan, where midwifery isn’t legal.
The government passed legislation allowing the practice in 1999 but the bill was never proclaimed.
Midwifery is legal in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
Heather Wood, a former Saskatchewan resident who apprenticed in the province but moved several years ago to Hamilton, Ont., to study and practise midwifery, said the maternity care must be funded, integrated into the health system and legalized.
“We’re hoping that the government will look at that legislation again, make whatever changes may need to happen and put it through the House and proclaim the act,” Wood said.
Health minister John Nilson said the problem is that the legislation requires the election of a board to act as a supervisory body for the profession.
“We have a problem because there are only four or five midwives that are part of the system,” he told reporters.
He said Saskatchewan might have to look at joining with Manitoba or Ontario to have a sufficient number to provide professional licensing and monitoring.
Nilson said another issue is how midwives would be funded. They could become salaried employees who work as part of the primary health-care teams. The problem with that is midwives typically are paid more than general practitioners, he said, and medical services agreements would have to be redesigned.
May 5 was International Midwives Day, and about 75 people, mostly women and children, gathered at the legislature to show their support.
Wood, who attended 100 births as an apprentice and about 700 since beginning her practice, said Ontario research shows savings in health care costs of $800 for a single birth attended by a midwife in a hospital to as much as $1,800 for an in-home birth.
The research also shows fewer caesarean-sections, fewer forceps and vacuum extraction deliveries, a lower rate of episiotomies and high patient satisfaction.
Saskatchewan Party MLA June Draude told the legislature that recent Alberta research has shown savings between $700 and $1,100 per delivery. That province is considering funding midwifery; all other provinces in which the practice is legal are funding it.
Wood added that midwives will become more important as family physicians leave low-risk obstetrics practice.
“It’s rural women and northern women who are going to be impacted first by that change so all the more reason in a province like Saskatchewan to have midwives move into that circle,” she said.
Drost said women at least need the option of a midwife, and that’s why she is willing to have her baby 250 kilometres from home.
