Midwifery is catching!

Midwifery is new to New Brunswick. At the moment there are still no midwives in the province but hopefully there soon will be! Legislation passed last year, and the government is now working on setting things up so that the Midwifery Act can be proclaimed, thereby allowing midwifery to be integrated into the publicly funded health system.

Since the day I found out I was pregnant with Brendan, when I immediately started to read about pregnancy and birth, a passion has been growing and growing inside me. I feel so strongly that it is every woman's right to be able to (at least try) to birth the way she wants to.
There are oh so many things wrong with the whole culture surrounding pregnancy and birth in our society- to the point where many of the practices that are now considered "normal" or "progressive" or the "safest" are almost barbaric when you really look at them. And I am certainly not anti-hospital or bothered by doctors or radical in any way. (Well, not really, although I totally understand those who are and where they're coming from.)

So every so often I've thought "I should do something about this". I've thought about breastfeeding support work, about birth prep classes and various other ways to help. I came across Birth Matters over a year ago and went to a couple of events they put on. Anyway, long story short, I'm now directing some of that energy into this group and trying to help with it's work.

Birth Matters is a non profit group that was initially set up to lobby the government to legislate midwifery, and is now working on putting pressure on them to follow through in a timely fashion as well as trying to encourage all the stakeholders to communicate and work together. We also want to be able to influence the way in which the midwifery model will actually work and how it will be implemented. Lots to do!

The website has more info if anyone wants to look.
A core group of 5 or so has been working on various things over the past couple of years but there seems to be a bit more momentum as we approach the date the government set for midwifery implementation. Last week I helped write a press release and a letter to the editor for our local papers.. We got a front page story last week too! We are now asking the government to be more transparent and to give regular updates on the progress. There are understandably a whole bunch of things that need to be set up. More on that later...

Last week we received a letter from the Health Minister inviting Birth Matters to nominate someone to stand on the newly created Midwifery Council of New Brunswick. We have a few people interested so tonight we're meeting to discuss it.
Thought I should include a relevant photo. Well this is close. It's not a newborn baby, but here is Tadhg having his very first taste of solid food. He managed to pick up some sweet potato and get it in his mouth but then spat most of it out and smeared it around the place. We're going to do more hands on, help yourself foods from earlier this time. Finger foods and a huge variety of tastes seems to have worked well for Brendan. (I shouldn't tempt fate but he hasn't been 'fussy' yet)