After 10 years in the practice, Melissa Langlais (BSc’03) is only too happy to talk about her career choice of midwifery. The president of the Midwives Association of New Brunswick, Langlais received her bachelor of health sciences degree in midwifery from Laurentian University in Sudbury, ON, and worked in Manitoba before coming back to the Maritimes.
New Brunswick's first registered midwives, introduced into the province’s health care system, started accepting clients in the Fredericton region last fall.
“Midwives are the usual maternity care providers across Europe and in many other places in the world,” says Langlais, whose own children, ages 4 and 7, were delivered at home by a midwife. “It is only in North America that it disappeared for a while, but it is making a strong comeback. There are currently more than 1,500 registered midwives in Canada. In 2015-16, 10 per cent of births in Canada were attended by midwives.”
These numbers are growing swiftly and steadily. Ontario has the most registered midwives of any Canadian province, and British Columbia has the most midwife-attended births: 21 per cent as of last year.
Midwives are fully trained and registered health care providers who are able to prescribe certain medications, order routine lab work and ultrasounds, admit clients to and discharge them from hospital, and collaborate with other health care practitioners as needed for optimal client care.
The philosophy of midwifery stresses continuity of care, the ‘natural-ness’ and ‘normal-ness’ of pregnancy and childbirth, and the importance of empowered, informed choices, including that of where the birth takes place. Research shows that healthy, low-risk births can occur just as safely at home with a trained midwife as in hospital.
“What I love most about being a midwife,” says Langlais, “is the relationships I am able to build with mothers and their families, and the way I am able to help make childbirth a positive, empowering experience.”
