From: dal3@cbnewsg.cb.att.com (dale.e.parson)
Subject: Re: OB .vs. a Midwife
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 13:38:16 GMT

In article <kuo1bvINNmjo@utkcs2.cs.utk.edu> michelle@cs.utk.edu (Michelle) writes:
>I was wondering if someone (anyone!) would be willing to share
>their experience using a midwife for their pregnancy.
>
>Pros and cons to it would be wonderful.  How do you go about finding 
>someone you feel comfortable with AND trust?  If you decide to use
>a CNM do you also need to see an OB (I would guess not, but what do I
>know? - Not enough. . .)
>

Other questions to ask besides the midwife/OB one are what will the birthing
setting be like, and do you really know ahead of time who will be overseeing
the birthing.

My wife's first pre-natal/delivery was with midwives working under a
team of OBs at a hospital. Pre-natal care by the midwives was excellent.
There were three on the staff, & we wouldn't get our pick--we got to
meet all 3 during pre-natal, but the birthing would be managed by whomever
was on call. As is often the case with hospitals, the bedroom-style
birthing rooms were in part tokens--there weren't many, getting one was
hit or miss, and they were in part a marketing ploy on the part of the
hospital.

The delivery: we got a birthing room, we didn't get the midwife we wanted:
the other two were very dynamic, this one was considering packing it in
(she did shortly after our birthing). My wife had intense contractions
right from the get-go (both as felt and as shown on even the earliest
monitor readings), yet in 16 hours she never dilated beyond 3 cm., &
dropped back to 2.5 cm. near the end. Ostensibly this was caused in part
by the turn of the baby's head. She finally decided on a C-section;
bring on the OB.

We knew that a hospital birth for our 2nd three years later would be loaded
with equipment and lots of bs because of the C-section in the past. We
consulted with an osteopath (D.O., not an M.D.) whose background is
both in TONS of homebirths for area Mennonites, Amish, and other
homebirthers, and also a general practitioner treating many of the
kids he has helped into the world. He assured us that statistically
there was no reason to expect problems in the 2nd delivery, & was
willing to do a homebirth. We went with him, also had excellent
pre-natal.

Labor came over 2 weeks late, we called, he said we should do the delivery
at his house/office. The reason was the combination of running late and
the C-section history, but I expect it was also because he had a full
day of patient visits scheduled. There was a midwife on-site, his right
arm as he said. The vibe was very different--both the doctor and the
midwife had obvious confidence & authority, something lacking in the
first midwife. Our daughter & my wife's sister could come & go as they
pleased. The delivery room was a bedroom, not hospitally at all (we
were within 30 min. drive to a hospital if the need arose). We knew
who we would be birthing with--there is no off duty with this team--
and we had the sense that they had come through their many birthings
with strength and learning, something that we did not feel about the
first midwife. Our 2nd was born after 6 hours of labor, & we all went home
together that night.

We wonder how the 1st birthing might have gone differently, had we had
a more competent/confident doctor-or-midwife. Maybe not at all.
The 2nd definitely would have been a lot less satisfying had my wife been
hooked up to machines & dealing with uppity OBs (I'm not generalizing--
the OBs overseeing the hospital midwives WERE uppity). Instead we
got to have control over the parts where we felt competent, and the
D.O./midwife team combined informality and obvious competency in a
very nice way.

To try to bring this rambling account to a point: I think the doctor-
midwife choice mattered less than a) knowing who will manage the birth,
b) having someone who combines extensive experience-based competency with
a lack of regard for the bureaucratic policies of hospitals and
ego-ridden colleauges, c) having control over aspects of the labor that
we felt competent to control.

Have a good birth!


Dale Parson, Bell Labs, dale@alux2.att.com

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|    "These words are too solid, they don't move fast enough           |
|     to catch the blur in the brain that flies by, and is gone..."    |
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|     Suzanne Vega                                                     |
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Newsgroups: misc.kids