UT: Economy leading more women to midwives
The Deseret News reports…
The slumping economy is becoming a factor in where some Utah women decide to give birth.
Licensed home-based midwives say they’ve seen a slight increase in business in part because their service tends to be less expensive than giving birth in a hospital.
“The fact (that) people are having a lot of financial troubles is causing people to look for alternatives,” said Suzanne Smith, a midwife who said she is taking more calls from people who are uninsured or have high deductibles.
Consulting appointments are also up at BellaNatal, a one-room birth suite in Orem run by Smith.
At the Birth and Family Place, a birth center in Holladay, the number of women touring the center who say they’re attracted by the price has risen to about one-third, according to medical director Rebecca McInnis.
“I don’t think it’s been that high before,” McInnis said.
A hospital-based birth can cost about $8,300, including about $6,000 on average for the hospital charge, according to 2006 estimates by the state health department. Deliveries at home or at a birthing center can be substantially less expensive.
Still, midwives said, cost is rarely the only factor in deciding to give birth at home or at a center. It typically only makes sense for women with low-risk pregnancies and for those willing to forgo epidurals and Caesarean sections. Women have to weigh the risks and benefits of giving birth outside of a hospital, they said.
“You really should be where you feel safe, where you feel good,” Smith said. “Nobody’s going to go to the cheapest place when it comes to the life of their baby.”
Paula Williams of Provo said she wanted to give birth at home with her second child. She said she was dissatisfied with the hospital birth of her first child. Cost was also a factor in considering the birth of her second. Williams, who doesn’t have insurance, delivered her son in a bathtub at her parents’ house in November and was glad she did.
“It was a lot better experience. I got to do it my way,” she said. “I will be doing it again, not just because of the money.”
TX: Birthing center reaches out for help
From the Brownsville Herald:
WESLACO - Holy Family Birth Center has been helping women have babies in a low-stress environment for 25 years, but now the center needs help so it doesn’t have to close its doors.
The center was founded in 1983 by Sister Angela Murdaugh, along with Sisters Mary Thompson, Damien Francois and Ann Wojtowicz.
The original grant for the center was given by the Meadows Foundation, under the umbrella of Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Brownsville.
The center grew to include six birthing suites, a clinic, a classroom, a chapel, medical storage rooms and housing for the staff, volunteers, students and visitors.
Nancy Sandrock, director of the center, is a certified nurse midwife.
She was asked to come to the center last year to keep it from closing because there had been no certified nurse midwives (registered nurses with extra training) for several months.
The donated buildings are located on land at 5819 N. FM 88 that belongs to the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville.
But, despite its name, Holy Family only receives moral support from the diocese; the Roman Catholic Church cannot afford to fund the project, she said.
Although Holy Family is faith-based, the nuns who founded it are now either dead or retired, Sandrock said.
Today there is a shortage of nuns, so there is a paid staff, in addition to volunteers who help women who come to the center and their families, she said.
Having a baby at Holy Family is a different experience than at a hospital, where expectant mothers may be afraid and uncomfortable in a cold, clinical setting, Sandrock said.
Teaching woman to be assertive and to realize they have choices about the birthing experience is one of the center’s goals, she said.
Unlike at most hospitals, they have a choice of having the baby in a warm water bath, which is a very natural experience, or in a bed if they prefer, she said.
The babies are not taken away from the mother at birth and kept in another room for six hours or more, as is done in some hospitals, she said. The baby stays with the mother, she said.
Mothers receive instruction in breast-feeding and care of their newborn and may be attended by a doula, which is a woman who attends to the mother all through the process, she said.
But everything costs money and that is in short supply for the center, Sandrock said.
“We may have to close,” she said. “We take people, regardless of how much money they make. … If you call around town, (other facilities) want $1,000 to walk in the door and who has $1,000 sitting around?”
But, even at Holy Family, low-income families are required to fill out paperwork to apply for Medicaid or CHIP reimbursement because there are many expenses, including staff, supplies, utility bills, equipment and repairs, Sandrock said.
CHIP is the state-run Childrens Health Insurance Program.
Some families may not be eligible for Medicaid or CHIP funding, “but they have to make the effort to apply,” Sandrock said.
Some doctors, hospitals or clinics encourage low-income women to go to Holy Family for pre-natal care, she said.
If the family is not eligible for a program, they will be put on a payment plan, based on what they can afford, Sandrock said.
Holy Family Birth Center does much more than just help women give birth, Sandrock said. Education about childbirth, prenatal care and infant care are all part of the program.
Volunteers and students nurses are trained at the center, she said.
If there are problems with the pregnancy, the mother and child can be taken to Knapp Medical Center in Weslaco, she said.
Dr. Elizabeth Krishnan worked hard to get hospital admitting privileges for the her, said Sandrock, who has a master’s degree in addition to being a registered nurse with training as a midwife.
In addition to money, the center could use donations of baby clothing, baby supplies, packaged baby food, building materials or even gift cards from Home Depot, she said.
Her husband James Sandrock uses his carpentry skills and interest in recycling to make repairs, often with reclaimed building materials, she said.
James and some of the nurses boarded up the buildings before Hurricane Dolly and he has been making repairs since the storm, she said. He also helps maintain the center’s computers.
Happy Midwives Week!
October 5 - 11 is National Midwifery Week in the US– but let’s not stop there, let’s celebrate midwives around the world! My celebration kicked off with the early morning water birth of a healthy baby boy!
You can read more about National Midwifery Week at the American College of Nurse-Midwives website.
CALIFORNIA: Blogger returns ;)
I’ve had a couple of emails– thank you! — asking where I disappeared to and the answer is I’m swamped! Home birth in The OC is thriving! When I’m not up all night at births, I’m doing my best to catch up on sleep and visit with the rest of my clients who are in need of their prenatal and postpartum care. Oh and I have those four kids of my own who just started school this week and of course one helpful husband! I’m also in school taking a review biology course that didn’t transfer to the regionally accredited college level from my nationally accredited midwifery school. I enjoy the once-a-week class with 300 of my closest friends in a classroom that looks more like a small arena. There are a lot of familiar students from my previous classes in it, so it’s a fun social hour to boot.
Another reader asked if I was going to do any more Podcasts and the truth is, I’d love to but there are not enough hours in the day to get it done and for my husband to do the editing. If I do another one all of you will be the first to know about it!
My website statistics indicate many of you are burning up the search engines looking for feedback on Dr. Phil’s home birth show. I understand it has already been filmed and we’re waiting on the airdate.
The next most popular search is that of the of the two women in Florida who were retried for the death of Mara McGlade at her birth at home. Friday Linda and Tanya McGlade (Mara’s mother- and sister-in-law respectively) were found guilty a second time in their retrial for the practice of and attempted practice of unlicensed midwifery and face up to five years in prison. You can read various reports here: Yahoo search results.
As you might imagine from the messages I post on behalf of the Big Push for Midwives campaign that I am in favor of licensing Certified Professional Midwives. It’s a tragedy that Mara McGlade’s midwives (yes, they were midwives) were not educated on the basics of life-saving measures when it came to blood loss. It is certainly possible to pray for God’s assistance AND provide hemostatic medications at the same time!
CALIFORNIA: Fewer OC Hospitals Are Allowing Midwife-Assisted Births
I Want my Midwife!
The list of OC hospitals that allow midwife-assisted births just got shorter—but moms-to-be and midwives aren’t taking it lying down
About a month from now—possibly during some still-black predawn hour, as it was with her first two children—Robin Parker’s water will break. Parker, her belly taut and engorged, will grab her bags, pack her two young sons into the car, and depart Mission Viejo with her husband to begin the hour-long ride north. Before she leaves, she will phone the person who’s been with her since the beginning of her pregnancy.
During her 50-mile trek, she’ll cross the Los Angeles County line; she’ll end at a birth center in Whittier.
When Parker arrives, B.J. Snell will likely be waiting for her. Snell is Parker’s primary prenatal-care provider and a certified nurse midwife. She will spend as many hours as it takes with Parker until the baby is born.
This wasn’t the Parker family’s original plan. They were going to drive about 10 miles west to Laguna Beach’s South Coast Medical Center, where Parker would give birth under Snell’s care. But since the June closure of that hospital’s maternity ward, the only facility in South County that granted midwives the privilege of delivering their patients’ babies, Parker and dozens of other women have had to either give up their midwives, change doctors or find places, like the birth center in Whittier, where midwives can deliver their babies.
While midwives have long been a topic of debate and controversy among medical professionals in the United States—especially when it comes to home births—midwife-assisted deliveries are increasingly seen as a mainstream choice for healthy women with low-risk pregnancies. Midwives have been proven, in research study after study, to have as good or better outcomes (for example, lower C-section rates, lower infant-mortality rates) than physicians working with the same patient population. Midwife-assisted hospital births are widely available in both Los Angeles and San Diego counties.
Visit the OC WEEKLY website for the full five page story by Daffodil J. Altan!
Of course I will offer the obvious reminder that several midwifery practices offer home birth services throughout Orange County. I am one of them!
Podcasts
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Or listen/watch each Podcast on demand:
Podcast 1: Midwives
Podcast 2: Birth Places
Podcast 3: Thinking About Home Birth
Podcast 4: The Birth Kit
Podcast 5: Interview with Ricki Lake