Did you have a MEDwife or a MIDwife? - Page 2

[kavamamakava]

My midwife was here for a home visit yesterday and after we talked about my birth philosophy, she told me that she didn't think I would appreciate her partner midwife at my birth and she's going to have a student midwife/doula come to assist her. She said her partner midwife is more of a medwife and has a birth clinic associated with a hospital and is much more hands on and likes to manage the birth. I'm totally laid back and slow when it comes to letting the baby out. I haven't even had any internals and I'm 36 weeks.

[Jenivere]

My first was born in a hospital with a dr.

My daughter was born at home with a wonderful lay midwife. She is a warm, caring, hands off kind of woman and I just love her.

[loving-my-babies]

I was in a practice of 3 midwives, one was a real midwife, I actually didn't like her at that time because I thought she downplayed everything. Then, there was the opposite one, the one I most liked, but then when I delievered with her, I realized she's definetely a MEDwife. She wasn't there for my labor at all, she gave me pitocin when it was not needed and didn't really encourage me to have the natural birth I wanted. The 3rd midwife was in the middle.

[kavamamakava]

Originally Posted by loving-my-babies

I was in a practice of 3 midwives, one was a real midwife, I actually didn't like her at that time because I thought she downplayed everything. Then, there was the opposite one, the one I most liked, but then when I delievered with her, I realized she's definetely a MEDwife. She wasn't there for my labor at all, she gave me pitocin when it was not needed and didn't really encourage me to have the natural birth I wanted. The 3rd midwife was in the middle.

I had a similar experience with my first. This was a well known homebirthing midwife too. But at my birth, she was bossy and wanted to overmanage the whole thing and she also seemed impatient to leave. I ended up with a hospital transfer (after the birth) for vaginal repair and I believe that I tore because of her impatience. Her partner was really mellow and laid back and I didn't feel confident in her care during prenatals. But I much preferred her presence during the birth and now I realize she is the type of midwife I prefer.

[crysmomofthree]

with my 1st I had an ob, who was never called to the hospital during my delivery so my ds was caught by a lovely nurse (o meds) but frequent fetal monitoring.
ds #2 was 33 weeks preemie, we had a wonderful laid back midwife who I adored during prenatal and delivery and I know her presence at the hospital prevented the ob from doing a c section.
ds#3 was with a different midwife practice. One of the mw, disagreed with a lot of my choices, such as to not get steroid injections when I had a couple of contractions at work at 29 weeks, and she agued with my decision to not get the vit k shot. But she was present for my delivery in the hosp and was wonderful, quiet and told the nurse by no means was she to suction the baby unless expressly told. he was born at 35 weeks
now pg with #4 I am with the same practice and I feel uneasy about this same midwife, I feel a lot of pressure to have myself vaccinated against rubella after the birth, she made a comment about knowingly getting pregnant and risking this babies life when I needed a rubella vax.
So I am not sure how I would classify her.

[captain optimism]

Like a lot of people here, I was in a CNM practice that had some crunchy, cool midwives and some not at all cool medwives. The worst one, the one I liked least, was on duty when I went to the hospital. My water had broken 40 hours before and I was not in active labor. In fact when I got to the hospital, my contractions kind of shut off. I really didn't like her, she made me so uncomfortable. She was a weird combination of medicalized model and defying the medicalized model. She kept disappearing, the OB nurses would wander into my room looking for her but she was, I don't know, having a coffee break or something while I tried to figure out what was going on with my weird labor. I was on monitors and pitocin and trying to relax, and she wanted to talk with my friend who was helping us about sexual abuse cases. I was like, "Okay, no talking about sexual abuse cases in front of the woman in labor."

The CNM who actually delivered my baby 44 hours later was also not all that crunchy, though she did have mad birthing skills and knowledge of positioning and stuff. the first thing she did was to take me off the pit. and put me in the hot tub, oh bliss, to see if I would go into labor without the pitocin. Nope.

She did an episiotomy, which I don't think was necessary but after 8 hours of pushing I think she was getting impatient. I actually think it was the OB on call at the hospital who is the reason I didn't have a c/s, because she really believed in my ability to give birth and in my midwife's ability to help me. the midwife who brilliantly helped me give birth knew nothing about breastfeeding beyond what you know about your own bfing experience. and gave all kinds of dumb and transparently bad advice with that.

I need to go for a pap smear and a regular check up and I don't want to go back to that midwifery. I just feel bad about them. Especially because at my 6wk. post partum check up my midwife gave me a big trip about weight loss and about sex. (but not weight loss through sex, that would have been more exciting! :LOL ) It was almost like she wanted to know why I had not had sex before the 6 week check up. I don't want to be made to feel bad about my weight anytime, but especially not after 6 weeks pinned to the couch trying to solve nursing issues. So i don't want to go back there.

[CryPixie83]

I had two midwives and their apprentice (who is also an OB nurse who has had a UC herself). I love these ladies to no end, they're really non-medical but they were much more involved than I would have liked (which is why I'm already working on DF to let me UC next time around).
* I wanted a waterbirth but they told me I was too relaxed by the water and had to get out.
*They timed contractions and used doptone frequently (anyone else think that's extremely annoying while you're laboring???)
*They did the "push while I count to ten" thing.
*One of the midwives told me that I *had* to empty my bladder or the baby would not come out, so I sat on the toilet for at least half an hour, trying my hardest to pee when I knew I couldn't.
*They told me to get mad (to help pushing) but then chastized me for being (extremely) vocal
* They "made" me squat (I say made because at the time I felt like they knew best and I was in pain and I felt cornered), even though I have never been comfortable in a squatting position (it kills my legs) and it took me crying for them to "let" me out of a squatting position.
*they frequently checked dilation
*they told me I couldn't get back into the water even after labor started to progress
*they would not listen to me when I told them I NEEDED to rest
*they had me lying (well, more of an inclined sitting because DF was behind me) to birth
*they told me when to push
*one was quite curt to my MIL (from what I"m told)

They also left almost immediately after the birth BUT another woman they were caring for was also in labor so I totally understand the rush. Wow, come to think of it, I REALLY want a UC next time.

All in all, though I had a much better birth (especially for a first timer in my area which is very medical-minded) than I would have in the hospital (which most likely would have been a c-sec for failure to progress). So I can't be too upset

[the_lissa]

I had great midwives. Here, midwives work in bith home and hospital settings. Mine were very non-interventionist, but I made to sure to talk about this at prenatal appointments, so I kenw where they stood. I had transferred to the hospital and was so glad to have my midwives there with me. I ended up having a pretty bad hemorrage and ob/gyn did a d&c. The ob/gyn said she would have given me a C/S because my labour was so slow (36 hours). One of my midwives came with me and held my hand during the D&C, which was so wonderful because I was pretty scared.

[Quirky]

Definitely a medwife for ds. She was my least favorite of the midwives (8 of them) at our local birthing center, which had seemed so ideal since it is less than a 10 minute slow drive from our house.

Hmmm, how did she intervene, let me count the ways:

• got my membranes stripped 3 times because I was almost 42 weeks (well, that was several midwives there)
• got AROM when I'd been at the birthing center for a couple hours because I was "too slow" for their OB's preferred schedule
• catheter when I couldn't pee
• purple pushing
• episiotomy after being on my back (semi-sitting) doing purple pushing because ds' hearttones were dropping after 2.5 hours
• deep suctioning of ds on my perineum because of light meconium staining
• early cord clamping after I had SPEFICALLY discussed with her AND shown her the research that delayed cord clamping does not cause polycythemia
• then my midwife took off, didn't stick around to help us get bf started or to figure out what was up with ds' rapid respirations

DS ended up in the NICU for 4 days for rapid respirations, didn't get him to the breast for 3 months, blah blah blah.

This time around I'm going with a homebirth midwife. Even though I have to drive almost an hour each way to prenatals, it is totally worth it to avoid the medwife scene!

(Candiland, is it the same midwife you had? Evelyn?)

[janerose]

DD was born in the hospital w/ a midwife from the hospital's ob/gyn group. All in all I'd say she was not too "med". Of course our hospital birth center is VERY natural birth friendly. The nurses & midwife pretty much left us to do our thing, just checking occasionally, maybe suggesting a different position if I seemed to be slowing down. They weren't regularly in the room until I went into transition.

My labor was 14 hrs from the water breaking/real contractions starting to birth. About 12 of those were at the hospital. I never felt pressured to do something I didn't want to. If the midwife thought I should try a different position I would and if I didn't like it I'd stop. She was fine with my stopping & I was fine with her offering ideas. The midwife checked my cervix about 3 times in those 12 hours. Always asking my permission first. There was intermitent use of the external fetal monitor, but that was also done with my permission first. I had total control over when & how to push, no episiotomy, she did warm compresses when dd started to crown, and nobody ever even suggested drugs. We did not have dd bathed after birth, didn't do the eye goop, vaccinations, the vit k shot, and she wore cd right from the start. We weren't hasselled about any of that.

All in all I was very happy w/ our experience. DH feels the same way & we would go back to them again.

[splendid]

We were military for #1, so I had a series of medwifes and doctors. In the end it was a dr that was there in the delievery room. Truthfully I couldn't tell the difference between the medwifes and the drs, even though they claimed there was a difference between them.

It wasn't till I met a real midwife that I finally understood there were caring professionals who I could trust out there.