So you’re
going to be a dad and your wife comes to you and says, “What you think about
using a midwife to deliver our baby?”.
This is the 2nd part of a previous post. It is a collaboration of what my wife and I
learned from the three midwives we interviewed as well as the experiences of
several other couples who have had kids in the past 12 months and used a
variety of OBYGNs and midwives.
Difference
2 - Options
I don’t know if you know this or not, I
didn’t until recently, but doctors operate under very strict regulation by the
insurance companies. Their malpractice insurance company governs a lot of
what the doctors can say or do, based on what they will cover and what they won’t
cover, based on what they believe will be less likely to allow a malpractice
lawsuit. Now most of the time that means keeping you, the patient, healthy
and happy, so it’s no problem. But what happens when there is something
that might be better for you the individual, that insurance won’t cover; or if
there’s something you probably don’t need, but the doctor has to prescribe it for you, regardless of the side effects or the
financial costs, because the doctor doesn’t want to appear negligent at any
time.
A guy I knew went to the doctor for a
physical, and the doctor said that his cholesterol was a little high. Not anything to be concerned about,
but the doctor wanted to prescribe him some cholesterol medication. The guy asked his doctor about a
recent article he read about taking a garlic supplement to lower
cholesterol. His doctor informed him that he couldn’t advise a patient to
take a supplement, because if
anything were to happen, he as the doctor
would be held responsible, where if prescribed a drug, the pharmaceutical company
would be liable.
By no
means am I trying to make doctors or anybody out to be a villain. If I were in their shoes, I wouldn’t
want to risk getting sued and/or losing my livelihood either, but it’s
important for us as patients to understand where the doctors are coming from, and
that you have the right and obligation
to ask questions, research the treatment the doctor is wanting to put you,
research other possible treatments. Doctors
might hate WebMD, but no doctor should have a problem listening to their
patients and addressing their concerns.
Midwives
have more freedom to give you options. Where
doctors are given a playbook that they have to follow, midwives can lay open
the doctor’s playbook and explain all the options, the likely outcomes for each
option, and the costs of the different tests or procedures. Rather than saying ‘here is the
situation and when would you like to do this?’; its more, ‘here is situation, you have
option A, B or C, here are the pros and cons, what would like to do?’ It’s like a team relationship versus
leader, follower.
Using a
midwife also can also offer a variety of options on where you deliver your
baby. I thought if you used
a midwife that meant you would have to have your baby at home but that wasn’t
the case. Some midwives have
made arrangements with certain hospitals, so they could deliver babies there if
that was the parent’s choice. Another
group of midwives had an apartment that was laid out like a home, which gave
the person a comfortable environment, without having to worry about what your
own house looked like at delivery time. Plus, it was close to the hospital if any
problems were to develop.
Something
else with midwife is some have different levels of care. If you’re like
me, you seen enough medical drama to fear the unpronounceable condition that
are possible. So one of my first question for each midwife was what if
something goes wrong? They informed me that 80 percent of all pregnancy
complications are foreseeable before a mother goes into labor. Depending on
what the condition, there are treatments to correct the issues before it could
become a risk, but if the midwife feels like the situation is over them they
send you to an OBGYN. The midwives we visited with had a list of OBGYN
that were willing to take over care for a mother that was having problems, even
to the day of delivery.
For the
person who likes the choices that a midwife offers, but would feel more comfort
being in a hospital with an OBGYN, some midwives will serve as a birth coach of
sorts. The midwife will meet with you and find out your wishes and then
during delivery when you’re preoccupied with actually having the baby, she will
make sure that your wishes are followed, ask the questions you don’t even know
to ask and present you with
other options than what the doctor might not have suggested.
Although
midwives can offer you some benefits, there are options that you sacrifice with
a midwife that an OBGYN can offer you. A doctor can write prescriptions. Although prenatal vitamins don’t
require a prescription to purchase, the prescription will typically allow them
to be covered by your insurance. That
goes for sonograms as well. Both
doctors and midwives can read them, but insurance will only cover it if it was
ordered by a doctor.
Pain. This may be the deciding point right
here. Only doctors can
prescribe pain medication or can perform an epidural. So if your wife wasn’t considering
going all natural, then you definitely want see an OBGYN.
Doctors will only deliver your baby at a
hospital where there is staff ready to do whatever it takes for the wellbeing
of you and your baby. At
the hospital they have access to certain equipment, medicines and tools
necessary to do things that just a few decades ago were unthinkable. They have been able to deliver babies
as early as 21 weeks and have them survive. If
a serious issue arose while you were seeing a midwife, you would potentially
have to jump to another health care provider, whereas an OBGYN would be
able to take care of you through all but the rarest conditions.
Well once again, this point was long one,
so I’ll end this post here. I
have one more point on the subject and then that will be it for this series and
I’ll move on to other essential insights to this whole new world of becoming a
dad.
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