Choosing your caregiver during your pregnancy is perhaps the single most important decision you’ll make, affecting your labor and the very first moments of your child’s life on earth.
That’s not to scare you, but to empower you to ask yourself what is meaningful, and what’s just tradition. Many women today seem to forget that you do have a choice as to who will assist your birth and where the birth will take place. Having a hospital birth with an OBGYN is perhaps expected, but there are a lot of options for you.
In the “old days” women would give birth in their homes—in their very own beds, perhaps. Usually the town midwife would assist in the birth, or a whole team of them. Today, the vast majority of women in America not only doesn’t give birth in their homes, but also have a very different team facilitating the birth.
Making the choice about your caregiver and place of birth will force you to ask yourself questions about the kind of care you want to receive, the relationship you’d like to have with your caregiver, how informed you’ll be during the birth, the options you’ll have during the birth, and how much influence you want over your own care and the care of your newborn.
It is your right as a healthy pregnant woman in the US to choose a midwife or a doctor as your caregiver. You should feel no shame no matter what your choice. Choosing a doctor over a midwife doesn’t make you a modern mother submitting your child to modern, and therefore cold, birthing procedures. It is completely a matter of what has meaning for you.
Searching for a midwife caregiver will take you a lot of time and energy. You want to meet different options, ask them about their technique and approach, and deal with the issue of location for the birth. The great thing about modern midwives is that they will often work in the location of your choice; be it home or hospital. A physician, on the other hand, will only deliver your child in a hospital.
No matter whom you chose, you want to make sure that person is fully informed and educated in up to the minute birthing procedures and knowledge. Just because it’s a midwife, doesn’t mean she should be in the dark ages! The more knowledge and experience your caregiver has, the more they’re equipped to handle any situation.
With equal knowledge, the ways in which caregivers will differ is in philosophy, style, birth setting, and insurance coverage. Explore all these things ahead of time, and really put in the effort to find the person with whom you share the same values and are able to have communication with.
The most important thing to keep in mind when searching for a caregiver is that you have options. When you make a meaningful decision about this life-changing experience, you’re setting the stage for an enriching and enlightening birth.
