midwife or MD?

Specialties Ob/Gyn

Published

For those of you who work with pregnant/laboring women: for a normal, low risk pregnancy, which type of provider do you think is best? Either for you, personally, or your patients?

I have not had a baby yet, but my preference would be a nurse midwife. My reasons:

  • a delivery done by a nurse midwife is significantly less costly than an MD
  • Nurse Midwives generally seem to view labor as a more natural process requiring less medical intervention
  • a nurse midwive's approach to pregnancy is more holistic

I would not choose a midwife who did not have a nursing background.

What would make you choose one over the other? Sorry, I haven't included DO since I don't know whether or not L&D was within their scope of practice...

Qualified midwife or midwife friendly OB. There are a lot of them out there if you just ask the right questions.

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If you want a non-medicated birth and want to be in control, then use midwives--I love them--I am speaking from experience, I have 4 kids! However, I am also a labor and delivery nurse and me and my other nurse colleagues have found working with midwives in the hospital setting to be professionally difficult, because they don't always like to follow hospital protocol when delivering their patients there. So, it is great to be a patient, but not great to have to work for one.

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I know this thread is old but since new discussion hads been gebnerated I'll add my 2 cents.

I would stick with the OB's. We have a few good midwives at my hospital however there are more bad midwives in my area then good (including things like not recognizing fetal distress with cord ph of 6.89 ect). If I could guarantee the good midwives would be on call I would go with them.

That being said I work with a fantastic groups of ob's, who are low interventionist and the c-section rate here is lower then the national average. I work at a great LDRP that promotes IA and alternative pain managment.

I suppose if I didn;t live and work where I do, I might more seriously consider a CNM.

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I'm currently pregnant and in nursing school. I'm going with a CNM who delivers at the hospital. She's awesome and I wouldn't trust anyone for my care. She's in practice with 3 other docs just in case. I like the idea that they are holistic and I will see the same provider throughout my pregnancy. There is also a much lower C-section rate when a CNM is used.

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Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

You should choose your care provider based on your personal birthing philosophy and how this person makes you feel when you interview him/her. If you are lucky enough to have a real choice, be sure you go with whomever supports your desire/plan for birth and comes highly recommended----and has solid backup in the case of an emergency.

Best wishes to all who are expecting blessings in their lives----or plan to in the future.

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