May 5th was the International Day of the Midwife, a day that is recognized around the world as an opportunity to celebrate midwifery and to promote awareness of the care that midwives provide. On March 14, 2008, midwifery became a regulated profession in Saskatchewan, joining seven other provinces and territories to offer a safe alternative to traditional physician care.
Midwives are specialists in birth, providing primary care for women and babies throughout pregnancy, labor, childbirth, and first six weeks postpartum. Midwives are able to do deliveries in hospitals or at home, and they are trained to provide immediate emergency care to the mother and newborn.
Midwifery care reduces the rates of intervention including cesarean section, result in shorter hospital stays, increased success rates of breastfeeding, and reduce health care costs. There are currently over 800 Registered Midwives throughout Canada, with over half of those in Ontario alone. Despite having the most Registered Midwives in Canada, the demand for midwifery services is so great that more than 40 per cent of women seeking midwifery care in Ontario are turned away due to a full case load. Across Canada, almost all other provinces are experiencing the same difficulties with meeting the demand for midwifery services.
Despite the goal of Saskatchewan Health to make midwifery care accessible to all women in the province, full scope of midwifery services is only available to women who live within the Saskatoon city limits. The Saskatoon health region has only five Registered Midwives and due to the demand for services, these midwives are not able to accept clients outside of Saskatoon which leaves women in other communities and rural areas without access to midwifery care.
Regina Qu'Appelle and Cypress health regions are in the process of recruiting midwives but services will be limited until more midwives are hired.
Until the Saskatchewan Government provides funding for independent midwifery services, rural women will continue to have insufficient access to midwifery care.
There are some obstacles to having midwifery care accessible to all women in Saskatchewan. Only four provinces in Canada offer university midwifery education programs, and Saskatchewan does not have one. A full range of midwifery care is only available to women within the city limits of Saskatoon at this time.
Although Saskatchewan Health has provided funding for midwifery services, it is not known when ten of the 13 regional health authorities in Saskatchewan (including Sunrise Health Region) are planning to implement midwifery care.
