BOW VALLEY – Women who wish to have a midwife during their pregnancy will soon be able to access services in Canmore thanks to a new three-year agreement between Alberta Health Services and the Alberta Association of Midwives.
The new agreement aims to increase the number of midwifery-assisted births as well as the number of midwives across the province, particularly in rural and Indigenous communities.
Jessica Swain, one of seven midwives with the Shifra Centre for Midwives in Cochrane, said the funding agreement will allow her organization to establish a new satellite office in Canmore in the near future.
“Thanks to this increase in rural funding it means that we now have the capacity to increase the number of women we’re taking from the Bow Valley,” said Swain, who is also chair of the Alberta Association of Midwives Indigenous midwifery committee.
“Right now as it stands, the doors for women from Canmore, Banff and Morley are always open if they want to make the drive to Cochrane for their prenatals, but soon we’ll have an actual location where we’ll be able to have clinic space out in Canmore.”
On average she said her organization helps deliver 180 babies a year and is currently working with seven pregnant women from the Bow Valley.
“With this increase in funding we will also be able to start looking after Indigenous women from the area and all of the different First Nation communities surrounding Calgary, so that’s also really good news,” said Swain, who identifies as a Métis woman.
About five years ago midwifery services were available in Canmore, however due to the low volume of clients it wasn’t a sustainable practice.
Health Minister Sarah Hoffman, who was in Banff on March 7, said the new funding agreement will allow more women to access maternal health services closer to home.
“We’re committing that we’re going to keep growing the program by at least 400 more babies being caught by a midwife every year, but I want that number to be even higher,” said Hoffman. “Communities like Banff are definite targets for us in expanding this program for the next four years.”
According to Swain, last year approximately 125 midwives helped deliver nearly 4,000 babies across the province.
In addition to reestablishing service in rural communities, the province has also expanded midwives’ scope of practice under the Health Professions Act allowing them to prescribe more prescription drugs and contraceptives, induce labour and use ultrasounds to determine fetal position.
“We have the same scope of care as a general practitioner would, so we can order all the same lab tests, ultrasounds and we do the same prenatal care,” said Swain. “We also provide continuity of care, so we attend women in labour and at birth and then we look after women for six weeks postpartum and do home visits.”
Nicole Matheson, president of the Alberta Association of Midwives, warmly welcomed the new agreement.
“We are pleased that this agreement benefits even more pregnant people,” wrote Matheson in a press release.
“With this agreement in place, the maternity care landscape in Alberta has shifted and enables greater integration to better support pregnant people to freely choose where, how, and with whom they birth.”
The three-year deal will last until March 21, 2022, however AHS and the Alberta Association of Midwives will re-open negotiations during the final year of the agreement to review compensation for the services provided.
Additional funding from the provincial government over the past three years has brought the total amount allocated to midwifery services to $49 million.
Visit www.shifracentre.com for more information about local midwifery services.
