Midwife? In modern tiemes? You betcha! An increasing number of women are preferring home births with midwife services over hospital stays and expenses. Some mothers, having had one child in the hospital, feel the expenses are unnecessary, while others feel more confident with a specialist like a midwife. Some women, having delivered in a hospital environment, feel that the process was too intrusive and interfered with the bonding and experiene. For whatever reasons, a return to home childbirth and midwife services is growing fast.
Some of the switch may be attributable to the increasing number of physicians who prefer to deliver a child by C-section. One in three children born in hospitals are now delivered by Cessarian, and the reason behind it is to lower the risk of exposure to a professional malpractice suit. The physician would rather perform surgury.
A midwife is a licensed health care professional, and has been trained to provide prenatal care, to guide the labor and birthing, address complications, and to care for the newborn child. Midwives charge an average of $4000 per birth, which is much lower than the cost of delivering in a hospital, and insurance companies often cover half of that fee.
Reasonable precautions are taken. Midwwives accept only low-risk clients, and a collaborating hospital is selected. Only 12-20 percent of home births will transfer to a hospital, and then it’s most often for pain relief or labor augmentation. A midwife has been trained to know when hospital techologies are necessary. A recent studies show that risks are nearly identical amongst low-risk patients.
Needless to say, a midwife should be well protected by a Professional Malpractice policy, and work as a team with hospitals, physicians and birthing centers.