Thursday
Mar262009
Canadian Maternity Experiences Survey: My Answers & Your Answers
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Yesterday, I posted about the Canadian Maternity Experiences Survey and asked you to answer a few questions about your birth experience, either on your blog, in the comments or by e-mailing me. Today I am updating with my answers and the links to some of your answers (if you haven't answered yet, please do still go ahead and I'll update the post with your link).
Here are my answers to the questions that Ann Douglas posed as a follow-up to the survey.
How much choice did you have when it came to finding a prenatal care provider? Lots of choice? Or was the choice made for you?
In both cases, I did the early pregnancy care with our family doctor. It is really difficult to get an obstetrician or a midwife and many people here don't have a family doctor either, so I count myself lucky that I was able to go to her for the basic care early on in my pregnancies and to get referrals for any and all tests that I chose to have done. Beyond that, the choice of a prenatal provider is strongly tied to the choice of a place to give birth, so I'll talk about that more in the last question.
That said, one difference between my care the first time and the second time, was that I chose to have a doula for my second birth. It was a wonderful experience that I would highly recommend to anyone. It gave me confidence in my ability to have a natural birth, it gave me an advocate on my side, it gave me knowledgeable support in the delivery room to make things more comfortable for me.
Where did you go for information when you were pregnant?
For my first pregnancy, it was primarily books, supplemented a bit by the Internet and a few questions at appointments with my healthcare provider. The books that I bought the first time around were The Mother of All Pregnancy Books (by Ann Douglas) and What to Expect When You're Expecting. To be very honest, I loved them both and they both provided me with different types of information and answered different questions. Now that I know more about pregnancy and birth, I wouldn't buy What to Expect When You're Expecting again, but hey...it seems it was "expected" (dripping with sarcasm). I did like the information that was very specific to each stage in the pregnancy. As a newcomer to it all, it helped me to understand what was going on. But I now know it contains a lot of questionable information. I loved and would highly recommend The Mother of All Pregnancy Books. I found it to be very well rounded and balanced (in terms of options) and had excellent information, lists and charts. I had the Canadian version, which was great because the information was specific to our healthcare system and options and the resources and contact information was Canadian.
The second time around, I don't think I cracked "What to Expect..." open once. I used The Mother of All Pregnancy Books extensively and also added a few more to my collection that I hoped would help me learn more about and prepare for a natural birth, including:
I also used the Internet a lot more extensively the second time around. The questions I had in many cases went beyond what the books would explain. I was looking for information on prodromal labour, on a specific medical condition I have and its potential impact on the pregnancy and birth, and so on.
Did you know about the importance of taking folic acid prior to conceiving? Had you heard about the new research about the role folic acide can play in preventing preterm birth (if you take it one year before becoming pregnant)?
I don't think I knew about long before getting pregnant, but I did set up an appointment with my doctor when we were thinking about trying to conceive to go over things I should be thinking about or aware of and I'm pretty sure she advised me to start a prenatal vitamin including folic acid and I'm pretty sure I did.
Did you feel you had adequate choice in terms of a place to give birth? Did you wish you had more options?
No (to the first part) and yes (to the second part).
...oh...did you want to know more than that?
For my first birth, I didn't give it much thought. I was thrilled to find an obstetrician that would take me (they are scarce here) and I just decided to deliver at the hospital where she is part of the obstetrics team. Period. Decision made.
For my second one, I knew I wanted a natural birth and that a hospital isn't the best place to do that. Here were the (non) options:
I'm struck by how different each person's experience was, based on the availability of various options where they lived and based on their preferences and even their personalities.
A number of other moms responded in the comments to my other post, including Krista from Typical Ramblings, April, Andrea, Shannon from A Crafty Mom's Blog, Alina, and Emi. A few others have responded below in the comments to this post, including C from Life on Manitoulin.
My answers
Here are my answers to the questions that Ann Douglas posed as a follow-up to the survey.
How much choice did you have when it came to finding a prenatal care provider? Lots of choice? Or was the choice made for you?
In both cases, I did the early pregnancy care with our family doctor. It is really difficult to get an obstetrician or a midwife and many people here don't have a family doctor either, so I count myself lucky that I was able to go to her for the basic care early on in my pregnancies and to get referrals for any and all tests that I chose to have done. Beyond that, the choice of a prenatal provider is strongly tied to the choice of a place to give birth, so I'll talk about that more in the last question.
That said, one difference between my care the first time and the second time, was that I chose to have a doula for my second birth. It was a wonderful experience that I would highly recommend to anyone. It gave me confidence in my ability to have a natural birth, it gave me an advocate on my side, it gave me knowledgeable support in the delivery room to make things more comfortable for me.
Where did you go for information when you were pregnant?
For my first pregnancy, it was primarily books, supplemented a bit by the Internet and a few questions at appointments with my healthcare provider. The books that I bought the first time around were The Mother of All Pregnancy Books (by Ann Douglas) and What to Expect When You're Expecting. To be very honest, I loved them both and they both provided me with different types of information and answered different questions. Now that I know more about pregnancy and birth, I wouldn't buy What to Expect When You're Expecting again, but hey...it seems it was "expected" (dripping with sarcasm). I did like the information that was very specific to each stage in the pregnancy. As a newcomer to it all, it helped me to understand what was going on. But I now know it contains a lot of questionable information. I loved and would highly recommend The Mother of All Pregnancy Books. I found it to be very well rounded and balanced (in terms of options) and had excellent information, lists and charts. I had the Canadian version, which was great because the information was specific to our healthcare system and options and the resources and contact information was Canadian.
The second time around, I don't think I cracked "What to Expect..." open once. I used The Mother of All Pregnancy Books extensively and also added a few more to my collection that I hoped would help me learn more about and prepare for a natural birth, including:
- The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth (by Henci Goer)
- Having a Baby, Naturally (by Peggy O'Mara) - read my review here
- The Birth Partner (by Peggy Simkin)- borrowed from my doula
I also used the Internet a lot more extensively the second time around. The questions I had in many cases went beyond what the books would explain. I was looking for information on prodromal labour, on a specific medical condition I have and its potential impact on the pregnancy and birth, and so on.
Did you know about the importance of taking folic acid prior to conceiving? Had you heard about the new research about the role folic acide can play in preventing preterm birth (if you take it one year before becoming pregnant)?
I don't think I knew about long before getting pregnant, but I did set up an appointment with my doctor when we were thinking about trying to conceive to go over things I should be thinking about or aware of and I'm pretty sure she advised me to start a prenatal vitamin including folic acid and I'm pretty sure I did.
Did you feel you had adequate choice in terms of a place to give birth? Did you wish you had more options?
No (to the first part) and yes (to the second part).
...oh...did you want to know more than that?
For my first birth, I didn't give it much thought. I was thrilled to find an obstetrician that would take me (they are scarce here) and I just decided to deliver at the hospital where she is part of the obstetrics team. Period. Decision made.
For my second one, I knew I wanted a natural birth and that a hospital isn't the best place to do that. Here were the (non) options:
- Home Birth: I ruled out a home birth because (a) we live a 30 minute drive from the closest hospital (b) the closest hospital sucks and we wouldn't be able to ask an ambulance to take us to a different one (they decide, not the patient) and (c) at the time the time the only people that were allowed to attend to home births in my province (Quebec) were doctors and no doctor would do a home birth (and I wasn't willing to go unassisted).
- Midwife at Birthing Centre in Quebec: We live close to the Ontario/Quebec border, so I looked into whether an Ontario midwife would take me on as a client and none of them would. I put myself on the waiting list for a midwife at a birthing centre in Quebec and I got a call half way through my pregnancy saying that they could take me if I was still interested. The problems were (a) none of the midwives spoke English and although I speak French, I didn't want to give birth in my second language...not a time for miscommunications (a friend of mine that delivered in Germany said the doctor insisted on speaking English with her, but mixed up the terms for epidural and episiotomy....yikes!) and (b) the issue of transferring to the crappy hospital again (no option on where they would take me if there was a complication).
- Hospital: I could choose to have my baby at a hospital in Ontario, attended by an obstetrician. It is odd to think that this was the place I felt most confident that I could have the birth that I wanted. I liked knowing that this was the place I was going to have my baby. I didn't have to worry about being transferred somewhere else, somewhere I wouldn't like, somewhere where I hadn't discussed my wishes and preferences with the attending team, somewhere where they wouldn't speak my language. I knew I was going to have my baby at that hospital. I knew that I could request a room with a whirlpool tub. I knew a lot of people that had successfully had natural births at that hospital. I had been there before. I knew the lay of the land. I felt more in control there than I would anywhere else. If I was designing an optimal solution from scratch, this would not have been it. But given the options I had, it was best for me. And I had a wonderful, easy, natural birth there.
Your answers
I'm struck by how different each person's experience was, based on the availability of various options where they lived and based on their preferences and even their personalities.
- Laurie from Mobile Mommy: Laurie wrote about her 3 prenatal and birth experiences in Alberta. One c-section and two successful VBACs. She wishes that there was more funded access to midwives.
- Heather from It's All About the Hat: Heather wrote about her experience with an unassisted pregnancy and unassisted childbirth.
- Nicole from Single Mom in the City: Nicole wrote about the scarce (but okay) options in a small town and all the reading she did in books and on blogs.
- Emily from Adventures in [Crunchy] Parenthood: Emily wrote about her experiences with both hospital births and unassisted childbirth.
- Melodie from Breastfeeding Moms Unite: Melodie talks about her experience working with a midwife and doula for her birth in British Columbia.
A number of other moms responded in the comments to my other post, including Krista from Typical Ramblings, April, Andrea, Shannon from A Crafty Mom's Blog, Alina, and Emi. A few others have responded below in the comments to this post, including C from Life on Manitoulin.
Reader Comments (7)
I loved The Mother of All Pregnancy book! It was one of my favourite reads and one of three books that I couldn't part with when I was giving away the rest of my pregnancy things.
The other book I highly recommend and will probably never part with was The Holistic Guide to Pregnancy, Magical Beginnings, Enchanted Lives by Deepak Chopra.
and, another note about one of the very few positives of delivering in the hospital that I did was that although none of the nurses really advocated for natural childbirth and clearly didn't think I could do it, they did eventually respect my wishes.
That's probably the one thing I would look for in future delivery options (now that I'm living somewhere that HAS options, albeit limited ones from the sound of it.)
Thank you so much for commenting on my breastfeeding in public post!
I'm going to have to bookmark your site, as I am going to have to come back and catch up on your other posts!
As for this post, I actually wanted to have a water birth with a midwife, but because I had a high risk pregnancy, I was not permitted to have one. I had to deliver in the hospital and since I live on an island in the remote (in the middle of Lake Huron), I had to go to a hospital 2 hrs away from where we live. Even that didn't work in the end, as our little one decided she wanted to make a very early appearance and at 26 weeks gestation, she had me flown from the hospital here to Toronto. She was born at 28 weeks gestation and canon balled her way out. Seriously, three pushes and she FLEW out. Code pink. No doctors in the room! Crazy!
Anyway, my ideal birthing experience would be to have a water birth. Unfortunately, the docs say for me that will most probably be a no-no for our next pregnancy too.
Here is the link to my answers. Thanks for giving me a great idea for a post for the weekend! These are my BC experiences. http://www.breastfeedingmomsunite.com/2009/03/the-canadian-maternity-experiences-survey-my-answers/
Very interesting thank you for your post. I am always interested in medical care in other Countries. I too like your above poster had a high risk pregnancy. In addition to my baby having a stroke in utero I developed a dangerous platelet disorder (this after a VERY easy pregnancy before). So not only was I not allowed to have a water birth they insisted I have an epidural in case I needed an emergency c-section (to avoid being put under). To their surprise the epidural didn't take so I had a natural delivery anyway (smiles).
I enjoyed reading others' experiences so I added my own. I'm a little late, but I guess better late than never, right?
http://www.attachedmama.net/canadian-maternity-experiences-survey/
[...] not enough women have true choice about where and how to give birth. We need to improve that so that women can choose the safe option that is best for them. var [...]
[...] even seen another woman give birth was a frightening. I wish I had been more educated at the time. I wish I had access to more options in terms of a birth attendant and birth location. I wish that I had spent more time researching instead of simply [...]