Did you have a MEDwife or a MIDwife?

[candiland]

As a doula, I've done quite a few hospital births with "midwives". One or two were fine, but the others................ they simply shouldn't be calling themselves midwives!!!!!!!

I was very psyched to doula at my first midwife attended hospital birth. Sarah, my client, discussed her natural birth wishes with her ob... including that she hated needles and therefore did not want a heplock, blood drawn, anything during labor unless absolutely necessary.

When we got there, she was still in early labor. The nurse came in for bloodwork and to do a heplock. Sarah, very shy, explained that she didn't want one. In stormed the MEDwife, saying things like "If you have an emergency and we can't find a vein we'll have to jam a needle in your jugular" and all this other crazy b.s. When we told her that the doc said she didn't need it, she said, "Well, Dr. Spader isn't here, is he?" At the end, she cut a huge episiotomy that tore into the rectum. Client was in stirrups for pushing.... the whole shebang.

A friend of mine is having her second baby with a different midwife in the hospital. She got an episiotomy at her first delivery from this midwife.

There are only a few midwives in my area that work in hospitals that truly DESERVE the name midwife.

Midwives always give 100% informed consent, with the option of backing out of anything you don't want done. They try to make a woman feel comfortable, supported, and relaxed during a birth. They discourage interventions unless they are absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, many women go to a midwife assuming that because she's a midwife she'll be this way. And that if she insists on fill-in-the-blank procedure, it must be necessary or good for them.

I had a midwife at both of my home births. She was totally hands-off. We didn't even have a due date for my second... just a due month She never insisted on anything or questioned me and my decisions. She really empowered me to birth my babies.

What did YOU have?

[Childishgoth]

eep.. i was lucky i had a great midwife. I could have had the baby all on my own with her not even moving if i wanted to. (haha i didnt.. but i could have!)

[candiland]

FTR, I'm not saying that all midwives in hospitals are medwives and all midwives at home are midwives. My OP is just my personal experience where I live

[khrisday]

Unfortunately, I woudl say that I had a Medwife. Although she was very into the natural birth process in many ways, she woudl not deliver at home if there was any slight sign of anythign going awry, and even though I specifically discussed my desire NOT to have my water broken, she tried to bully me into doing it anyway when she got to my house.

[USAmma]

My ob works with a midwife. She was in the process of getting hospital priveledges when I had Nitara so she wasn't there for the birth. However she only works in the hospital and she's the doctor's back-up.

But I knew that going into it, that I wanted a hospital birth, so it was no big deal. I can't imagine the disappointment of thinking you have one thing and getting something else though.

[westernskies]

removed

[Red Sonja]

after reading the OP - wow, i'm glad i had the midwife i did! i went to a practice that had 1 ob (really great one) and 2 midwives. after hearing the kind of birth i wanted (no meds, using hypnosis, no continuous monitoring, no IV, etc) the doctor said that leanne (one of the mw's) would be the best choice for attending my birth, that he knew he wasn't needed. she was great - told me ahead of time to bring some food and drinks for when i was in labor, etc. she let me labor in my own way, at my own pace and didn't try any interventions. well, i let her break my water to get things started because we were in the direct path of a hurricane and i didn't want to deliver by the side of the highway during an evacuation. (picture me, with my business end hanging out the side of a little 2 door red sports care, 7 cats yowling in the back and dh delivering the baby beside gridlocked traffic on i-95. no thanks!)

i did have a hospital birth, but i also had a good birth experience. one of my nurses tried to do baby-story style pushing (ok, i'll count to 10 and you push) but my midwife cured her of that really quick.

[Ligmom]

hehe...my midwife is about as far from MEDwife as you can get--very naturalistic. I her!

[JanetF]

Um both? I had a very "with woman" MW at home and a horror MEDwife when I transferred who got offended when I commented on my son's lovely variable heart rate. She just wasn't so special if the "patient" knew stuff like that! She did stuff without my permission and had that brittle, patronising thing going where I was being perceived as a Bad Patient. To read her notes of my hospital time you'd think she was Ina May Gaskin being lovely to me! It's tragic that women with midwifery training get sucked into that whole power trip
J

[TiredX2]

With DD I *thought* we had a midwife, got stuck with a medwife. Were told the day after my water broke that they had changed their policy to not delivering in their birth center if you went >24 hours after your water breaking This was after getting it on VIDEO twice saying you could go at least 48 hours (I felt this would be a problem all along). Ended up in the hospital, with pitocin, an IV, antibiotics, stadol, in bed, catheter and *almost* with a episiotomy (I refused and ended up pushing DD out because the midwife said after that push she was going to cut. I just kept pushing through two contractions and DD finally got out. This was only after like 2 hours, btw, not a prolonged pushing stage for a 1st labor). With DS, though, we had midwives at home

(Didn't answer the poll, I had two different experiences)

[alegna]

I answered with midwife, but really one of each. Started with a MEDwife. She answered all of our early questions well but turned into a big-time MEDwife (though she is homebirth, not hospital... she's also a CNM) and we switched at ~30weeks (after being kicked out for refusing to do GD testing with no risk factors) to a WONDERFUL midwife.

-Angela

[darsmama]

My midwife is as far from a Medwife as you can get.

[wednesday]

I guess I had medwives, although to tell the truth they were barely present for my birth anyway. I was at a freestanding birth center and almost my entire birth was attended by labor nurses and CNAs, a couple of whom from the sound of things were fairly new and not even particularly alternative in their approach to birth.

I thought I was getting an alternative birth, and although I do think being there instead of in a hospital saved me from a c-section, it was way more traditional and medical than I had anticipated.

[jraohc]

Definitely MEDwives (boo hoo!)! I wish I had listened to the warning signs and listened to my heart. Oh well.

The warning signs:
* After I requested no doppler at a week 12 (or so) appointment I was told it was too early to hear the heartbeat without it, but maybe next time. That part didn't bother me as much as what happened next, but I do have to wonder why it's so important to hear baby's heart? What happened next was that the medwife heard the heart and then was sort of "chasing" the baby around with the doppler - she'd listen and baby would move away. At future appointments they did switch to the fetoscope - I think I was the only patient to request it because it was always where I saw it last.
* Being told that efm was a good thing.
* Being told I couldn't eat during labor - hospital rule.

I know there was more, but right now I can't think of what else there is.

As far as how I KNOW they are MEDwives:
* They did NOT get informed consent for internal monitor or vacuum delivery
* After dd was delivered, I met with 4 of the 8-10 medwives in the group and 3 of those 4 said "at least you had the delivery you wanted" or some other nonsense like that. I most certainly did NOT have the BIRTH I wanted! ARGH! 7 months later and I'm still getting quite worked up over this.

I wish there was some way to warn other women, but I know that I didn't listen to any of the warnings, so I feel like it's hopeless. If anyone is reading this and getting vibes that maybe their midwife is a medwife or that maybe they aren't heading down the road they want, I hope they will reconsider their birth plans!

[pamamidwife]

Originally Posted by darsmama

My midwife is as far from a Medwife as you can get.

[Greaseball]

Mine were somewhat medically oriented - one is a pharmacist and the other used to be a nurse. But they were both non-medical in the way they handled my appointments. Both were really into alternative medicine, etc.

[doctorjen]

I saw a group of Medwives for my 2nd baby. It was a group of 6 employed by my HMO. I loved one of them, who was very crunchy, and I hoped like anything that she would be on call when I went into labor. I liked 2 of the others, also.
One of them was also in law school, and I ended up with her at a lot of prenatals due to scheduling issues. I had several arguments with her along the way. One was a 45 minute deal over how "irresponsible" it was for me to decline a triple screen! Please. I was 24, healthy, fully cognizant of my individual risk for having a baby with a chromosome problem, fully willing to love such a child for life, and fully understood the limits of the test. On top of that, I was delivering in a tertiary care center for pete's sake, so they should be able to handle anything if I didn't know about it before birth!
She also told me her personal episiotomy rate was 75%, and that she tried not doing them, but had a lot of tears.
The last straw with her was when she told me she thought all women should have a 2 doses of penicillin in labor "just in case of GBS."
I was actively scared of her, and never could get to a place in my mind where I could visualize delivering my baby with anyone in this group.
I worried a lot about getting one of the ones I didn't like on call in labor. I worried enough that I stuck around at home convincing myself I wasn't in labor, and then had an unplanned UC with my very non-medical friend catching my daughter with one of my bath towels in my living room! So it all turned out just fine.
My 3rd baby, I used my family doc, who was obviously not a midwife, and a man to boot. He was the best birth attendant I've had, though - very sensitive and non-obtrusive. I had no worries whatsoever about him attending my birth - to the extent that since he had to be out of town for a few days, I stayed pregnant 41 1/2 weeks, and then started laboring when he was home. He climbed into the queen size bed in the hospital birthing center with me where I had nested in a pile of bean bags and helped pass me the baby as I pushed him out. I felt very supported the whole pregnancy and birth, and always, always in control myself. It was definitely my best attended birth experience, and I think he can count as an honorary midwife!

[lacysmommy]

I had an awesome homebirth midwife. I will use her again with my next baby. She wasn't a MEDwife, certainly. I love my midwife!

[MarineWife]

Unfortunately, I think midwives that work in hospital are bound by hospital rules so tightly that they may go overboard. When I was seeing the midwives at my hospital (a military clinic) I was told that I should go back to the OBs so that I would have more flexibility. I was doing a VBAC and would have refused induction just because I was overdo and other things. The midwife told me that she was under direct supervision from the OBs and that they had the final say so it would just be easier and better for me to see the OBs from the beginning. So, I guess I'm saying don't hold it all against the medwives in the hospitals. They may be doing the best they can under the circumstances, trying to keep it is natural and unmedical as they can in a hospital setting.

[cottonwood]

Depends on how you want to define "medwife". Is that as in "medical" or "meddle"? I had a homebirth meddle-wife. She artifically augmented labor (in a "natural" way ), and timed contractions and measured dilation and acted on that information. She told me I was making the wrong sounds and faces, and had me lie down to give birth while she worked away on my perineum and directed my pushing. : And she took my perfectly healthy baby away minutes after he was born to do I don't even know what, as she had her back turned to me and my attention was on the apprentice who was admonishing me to get to work on getting my placenta out. : :

My second midwife, though, didn't meddle at all. She was wonderful.