Midwife vs. OBGYN - 3 of 3

So you’re going to be a dad and your wife comes to you and says “What do you think about using a midwife to deliver our baby?”. 

This is the 3^rd installment of a 3 part series.  It is a collaboration of what my wife and I learned from the three midwifes 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 3 - Mindset

Once again I remind you that these are just generalities.  Not all doctors fit into this description, nor do all midwives, but this kind of gives you an idea of where each of them come from.

Medical doctors come from the mindset of figuring out what can they do or give you to make you better as quickly as possible.  Doctors are very busy people, especially OBGYNs. They see a lot of patients every day and then on top of that they are on call whenever one of those patients goes into labor.  This means that

doctors can’t be as hands on, and depend on a nursing staff to manage a majority of your care. This also means they have to balance your care with all their other patients, so that weighs into their suggestions as well.  If its getting late, or they know they have other mothers progressing at the same time, they maybe more likely to recommend medication to hurry along your labor (and increase your labor pains) or be more likely to encourage a cesarean because in the long run it will work better for the doctor’s schedule and their patient load.  I’m not saying that doctors don’t care about you, but they do have to balance your care with everyone else’s. Sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.

Midwives are more focused on providing individual care and will be conscientious of making sure they don’t have too many mothers due at the same time to minimize the chance of not being able to give you the one-on-one care you need and hired them for.  They work a lot with making sure their mothers have a healthy diet and an appropriate amount of exercise.  I know OBGYN will talk to mothers about diet and exercise, but with people I talked to, their care was not focused on that near as much as midwives care is.

Midwives have a naturalistic view of child birth.  For them it’s about listening to the body and giving it what it needs.  An example one midwife gave us was, when a mother goes to the hospital in labor, they lay you in bed and forbid you from having anything but ice chips.  On the flip side this midwife actually encouraged walking around or sitting up, letting gravity help get the baby into position quicker.  Also the midwife compared labor to a marathon, so she encourages her mothers to drink juice and have light snacks to help keep up their strength. 

I realize I laid out a lot of information out there.  Trust me there was a lot more I left so this post didn’t get any longer.  My goal was to just let you know there is another option out there.  I do suggest that if anything you learned has piqued your interest, that you go set up a consultation and get more information for yourselves so you and your wife can make the best for her and your baby.

So remember …