Vancouver Midwives to Deliver Free Workshops and Lectures During Midwifery Awareness Month

Vancouver, November 1, 2011 — Vancouver midwives and midwifery clinics will be hosting free workshops and lectures throughout November to increase awareness and education on maternal and newborn care for women and parents-to-be during Midwifery Awareness Month.
“Midwives are highly trained, university educated, publicly funded and regulated,” said Linda Knox, Acting Head of the Department of Midwifery at BC Women’s Hospital & Health Centre and St. Paul’s Hospital. “An ever increasing number of Vancouver women and their families are choosing midwives to provide them with quality prenatal, birth and post natal care.”

In 2009/10, midwives assisted 1,463 births in Vancouver, up from 593 midwife-assisted births in 2004/05. Midwives now attend the births of more then 10 per cent of the 40,000 babies born each year in B.C.

Vancouver’s midwives initiated Midwifery Awareness Month in 2008 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of registered midwifery in the province and the benefits that midwives provide to new moms, babies and their families. Midwifery was designated as a profession in B.C. under the Health Professions Act in 1998. Prior to that time, family physicians were providing the majority of primary maternity care and continue to do so. Although the care they provide may be different in some ways, both midwives and family physicians are committed to providing excellent care to women and families at this important time in their lives.

There are now nine full-service midwifery clinics in Vancouver and more than 50 midwives in the Department of Midwifery at BC Women's and St Paul's hospitals who provide care for women in every community of Vancouver.

Throughout November, Vancouver women and parents-to-be are invited to attend more than 25 free workshops and events at Vancouver-based midwifery clinics to learn about a range of topics, including preparing for pregnancy, prenatal education, acupuncture and fertility, and infant CPR, to name a few.

“Midwives do more than just deliver healthy children,” said Knox. “Midwives provide full prenatal, birth and post natal care, and nutritional and practical support and advice for new moms, in hospital and at home.”

Research shows that women who birth their babies in the care of midwives are less likely to require obstetrical technology; less likely to be hospitalized prenatally; have a lower rate of caesarean sections; and have a lower rate of preterm births. Research also confirms there is no increased risk in birthing babies at home under the care of a midwife.

For further information about Midwife Awareness Month in Vancouver, including a complete list of more than 20 events, please go to MidwivesinVancouver.ca.

Vancouver Midwifery Clinics

Birth & Beyond: a Midwifery Faculty
Practice at UBC
#310 – 5950 University Blvd
tel: 604.822.8800
www.birthandbeyondmidwives.com