Choosing a Supportive Healthcare provider: My Decision to Switch to a Midwife

“It’s possible for a first time mom to give birth naturally.” This was the reaction my OBGYN gave me when I expressed my interest in having a non-medicated birth. She really emphasized the fact that it was possible but not likely to happen, which spoke volumes to me.

Just from the small bit of reading I had done up to that point, it was clear to me that birthing was the most natural thing my body could do, so I was quite shocked to see that it was generally accepted as an impossible feat without the help of modern technology. How did we get to a place where a trained medical professional had no confidence in the human body’s ability to give birth?

She added that if I was serious about attaining a non-medicated birth that I would need to do my research and take a class—really prepare for it physically and mentally. While I do agree with that need for preparation, I think what is most important for pregnant women in general is that they prepare themselves in that same, in-depth way before deciding what kind of birth they would like to have and what kind of healthcare provider they want to work with.

Prior to this particular visit, I had been questioning whether or not to switch to midwife care because I really liked my OBGYN. She was young, friendly, and obviously knowledgeable and professional. But her statement and apparent doubt in my body’s and my baby’s ability to give birth naturally revealed her own birth philosophy—she saw it as a medical event versus a natural one. I knew that I would never “be able to do it” if my caregiver didn’t believe in it. So with only two and a half months left in my pregnancy, I switched to the Midwives of Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts where they saw birth as a natural event, one that should be free of medical interventions unless absolutely necessary. While the prenatal appointments ended up being very similar to those at my OBGYN's office, it seemed the midwife team just had more time for my questions.

I did, however, take my OBGYN’s advice and signed up for a Hypnobirthing class immediately. Because the class was not starting for another month, I bought the course book HypnoBirthing: The Mongan Method. Just like Your Best Birth did, this book opened my eyes. Simply by practicing the relaxing basic sleep breathing (inhaling to the count of four and exhaling to the count of eight) I saw and felt the potential of where I could go and what I could accomplish with hypnobirthing. I was determined, and was going to have a positive birthing experience after all.