Our New Zealand registered not-for-profit www.commonknowledgetrust.org (that holds a Childbirth Concept and our associated website www.birthingbetter.org (that holds the skills fathers and mothers developed for all births) wants to say categorically midwives are a vital part of any and all maternity systems and need all of our support.
All women around the world would love to have a ‘continuity of care’ birth provider … one who sees us through pregnancy and will be with us during our birth and may be with us after birth. Although after birth, mostly we want someone to clean, shop, take care of the other kids, cook and let us rest for a few weeks and get to know this new human being.
What has a midwife been in the past? What are they now? What do we want from them? What is our responsibility to them?
Our New Zealand Trust exists in a country where there is a Midwifery Model of Care … Partnership model of continuity of care, put in place in 1990. Everything the Natural Birth Advocates and Homebirth Midwives wanted was put in place and so much more. It’s a wonderful system and much loved by Women.
At the same time, the c/s rate is on par with Obstetric led maternity systems and midwives are collectively exhausted and discouraged.
This talk is going to address how we got here and what you can do right now if your care provider is a midwife, what we need to do to support midwives and how to balance every ‘partnership’ we have whether our birth provider is a midwife or obstetrician.