Province does catch up by funding midwives
For the birth of her first child, Red Deer mother Andrea Rentz chose to have a standard hospital birth.
Her daughter Mia, now four, was delivered by Caesarean section.
But for her second pregnancy, she decided she wanted a different experience and chose to use a midwife.
She and her husband headed to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton for the delivery. Rentz said her experience was markedly different.
“It was really a wonderful, empowering experience,” Rentz said. “I didn’t realize birth could be such a powerful experience.”
She said the birth of her daughter Ana, now two and a half, was very low key, with no drugs used.
“There are wonderful doctors out there who do a wonderful job and there are lots of people who are really happy with that,” Rentz said.
“For me, I was really happy I was able to make that choice and we were very privileged financially to be able to make that choice (to use a midwife).”
More families will likely have the option to use the services of a midwife, with an announcement that the provincial government will fund the service. The Alberta government announced on Thursday that starting on April 1, 2009, midwives will be brought into the publicly funded health system.
Rentz said she was cautiously optimistic about the announcement.
“Initially it sounds like a great idea and it is a wonderful first step in the direction that the province needs to go,” Rentz said. “It’s definitely about time that Alberta caught up with the rest of North America.”
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