For the past year and a half, the Victoria Birth Centre Committee—an inter-professional group of maternity care providers, clients, and parents—has been researching the feasibility of a Birth Centre for Southern Vancouver Island.
Many developed countries, and some Canadian provinces, including Quebec & Alberta, have publicly funded birthing centres. Decades of research has illustrated the safety of birthing centres for low-risk women. Birth centres provide family-centred care for healthy women before, during and after normal pregnancy, labour and birth. Designed in the wellness model of pregnancy and birth, birth centres are guided by principles of prevention, sensitivity, safety, appropriate medical intervention and cost effectiveness. Birth centres provide a warm and welcoming environment for pregnant women and their families and offer an alternative to both hospital and home birth.
Childbirth is the single largest cause for hospitalization for women in Canada. We believe that a Victoria birthing centre would provide:
• an additional option for low-risk mothers
• safe and cost-effective care
• reduced intervention rates
Research has shown that women who give birth in an atmosphere that is quiet, patient and respectful of women’s abilities to deliver babies, usually fare better. Currently, midwives can attend birthing women out-of-hospital, including in women’s homes or in birth centres (in most parts of the developed world and in a few provinces of Canada). They follow standards and guidelines that protect women, but still allow for greater flexibility in a location where many women can give birth.
Birth centres are:
- A good and safe alternative to hospital birth for low risk women – a centre of excellence in normal birth.
- A meeting space for new and future parents no matter their choice of birth place. Having the occasion to meet or see women coming in whlabour or leaving with their newborn, creating a sense of normality in relation to childbirth
- A way to bring birth back to the community
- A way to make visible in a public space a small institution entirely dedicated to normal birth, maternity care and families
- An illustration of a social and communitarian vision of health
- A means to support midwifery, client confidence, autonomy and therefore the promotion of normal birth
- An excellent education opportunity for other health care students
- A good way to promote public health and strengthen primary care
- A good way to enhance our birth culture by normalizing birth
So far we have been gathering information and resources. We have held several community forums and presently we are working on a survey to gain more information from members of the community. We would love to see midwives, GPs, nurses and supportive carers involved in the birth centre.
