Due to the high-quality, personalized maternity care that midwives provide, many people assume that hiring an Ontario midwife is expensive and unaffordable. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
First of all, midwifery care is free!
This is true whether you have OHIP or not. Midwifery care is funded by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care for residents of Ontario. For our clients with OHIP coverage, labs and ultrasounds ordered by midwives are free just like when you see a doctor or obstetrician. Additional funding is available to our clients without OHIP coverage to pay for things like lab work and ultrasounds, as well as hospital stays.
Not only is midwifery care free, it can save you time and money. Midwives draw labs in clinic, so you usually will not need to spend more time travelling to a lab and waiting to get blood drawn. Testing for gestational diabetes? We offer that right in our clinic!
If you have urgent concerns in pregnancy or in the postpartum, we are only a page away. Midwives triage you over the phone and will meet you at home, in clinic or in the hospital to assess you in person. This means that you only end up in the emergency room or on Labour and Delivery if it is truly needed.
Whether you are planning a home or hospital birth, we assess all our clients in labour at home. If you are planning a hospital birth, this home assessment saves you being sent home from the hospital in early labour as so many labouring people are. (It also saves you those parking fees!)
On Day 1, Day 3, and Day 5 of your baby’s life, midwives will come see you at home, regardless of where you have given birth. We weigh your baby at home, offer all of the standard newborn tests and screens, and assist with breastfeeding. This means that you can focus on meeting your baby’s needs without worrying about appointments or leaving the house.
Breastfeeding is another way midwifery care can save you money. Breastfeeding is an inexpensive way to provide your baby perfectly tailored food. Midwives provide lots of breastfeeding assistance and frequent baby weighs early on, which strongly contributes to 86% of our clients breastfeeding when they are discharged from care at 6 weeks postpartum.
On a broader scale, midwives save the healthcare system money by protecting our clients against unnecessary emergency room visits, hospital admissions and reduces length of stay and by providing community-based care with excellent outcomes for our clients.
Accessing midwifery care saves the government-funded healthcare system money and moderates the demand on other practitioners, which means that the care that you receive elsewhere improves, too!
Ontario midwives provide highly valuable, quality, personalized maternity care for free. If you are interested in accessing midwifery care or would like to find out more, please give us a phone call! We’d be happy to help you find your local midwifery practice or connect you with a midwife in ours.
Becky is a senior student midwife with Generations Midwifery Care. Learn more about her here.