New midwifery program will improve care while easing health-care burdens, midwife says

A new midwifery program will better provide prenatal, postpartum and other sexual and reproductive health services in the Conception Bay North area while easing the burden on professionals in other health-care sectors, according to a midwife at Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services.

The program launched last week in Carbonear and will be phased in over the rest of the year to be fully in place by February 2025.

"There is a lot of demand, and there's been a lot of interest. So I've kind of landed in a really wonderful spot in terms of midwifery, because there's been such a warm reception to our program being initiated here," Sarah Donnelly Harnum, a registered midwife and midwifery implementation co-ordinator with the provincial health authority, said Tuesday.

Midwives have already started working with people due in February or later at the Carbonear Community Services building, and will also provide assessments at Carbonear General Hospital as necessary. Midwives typically work with new parents and families until between six and eight weeks postpartum.

Donnelly Harnum said midwives are also working closely with community and family care teams, allowing for seamless care for everyone — including those without a primary care provider.

On top of the traditional services a midwife provides, Donnelly Harnum said they will work in other areas like cervical cancer screening and sexual and reproductive health services including pap tests and contraception counselling.

She said that collaboration will ease the burden on other professionals in the system while maintaining quality care, and continue the historical importance of midwives to Newfoundland and Labrador's health-care system.

"If somebody is going home without a primary care provider, sometimes the obstetricians will have them back into the clinic to see them if there's follow up that's required based on what had happened in their pregnancy or delivery. We can take that person now out of the obstetrician's roster so that they're freed up to do something else," Donnelly Harnum said.

"There is this sort of misconception about midwifery that [home birth] is all we offer…. There's a lot of things that midwifery can help to take away from the specialists, because they're routine things that are well within midwifery's scope for us to do."

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