Does your mw bring an assistant? - Page 2

[Virginia884]

My MW brings a student midwife with her. We can meet some of these midwives at appointments, but she said if you always schedule your appointments on the same day, then you might not meet them all. One mama who used her told me that the student who showed up had never met her before, so I'm not sure how much I like that. Will try and stagger my office visits so that I can at least meet everyone in the practice.

[BlackSheepPDX]

My "birth team" for my first was a midwife, and apprentice, and an intern. Standard, and all three were expected to be at the birth, and most if not all of the appointments.

My current team, with a different midwifery, began as three full midwives, of which at least two would be at the birth. One passed away during my pregnancy, and they have replaced her with an assistant/apprentice. I think all three will be at the birth, with a minimum of midwife plus assistant.

I would always want at least two attendants in some form, in that there may be situations requiring two sets of hands whether for mama alone, or after birth, one for mama, one for baby.

[MegBoz]

My MW brings an assistant who is also an apprentice/ student MW. She only brings ONE person with her. I confirmed that. While I agree it's definitely helpful to have another pair of hands assisting the MW, I have no interest in having more than 2 attendants! 2 MWs plus 1 assistant would be way too many people for me personally.

Do you have to pay a separate fee for your MW asst? Some of the HB MWs here charge it as a separate fee, but mine charges one flat global fee for everything - prenatals, birth, & the asst.

[Pyrodjm]

No, my midwife sdoes not have an asssitant. She attends births alone and if she is at another birth when I go into labor another local HB midwife will cover for her and come in her place.

[BlackSheepPDX]

No extra fees "per person" for us. The cost of their services is for prenatal care, birth, and post-partum/well baby care for 6 weeks. They choose to provide it via 2-3 people.

[rightkindofme]

Midwife + apprentice here. Amusingly, my midwife is also bringing her ~12ish year old daughter because my midwife has an almost one year old who comes to births with her. Given that we also hired a doula this time and my doula asked to bring another doula (long story) we are going to have quite a full house. It's a good thing I don't mind having a bunch of people staring at my crotch.

[Pippi L.]

I'm in BC, too, so there are always two midwives for a homebirth unless you're rural in which case I believe there's a provision for an assistant who has specific training. The second midwife comes right before the birth. I assume it's to have an extra pair of hands when the baby comes and for liability reasons.

I don't think, however, that you have to go the hospital if the second midwife can't make it. The second midwife on call when my daughter was born was actually at the hospital delivering another baby when my midwife called her to come. The other baby was born the exact same minute as my daughter so she would have never made it. She called another midwife in the practice who wasn't on call and who made it just before the birth. It was a fast birth, though, and I doubt I would have made it to the hospital anyway. The primary midwife got there just after I started pushing.