Initial Prenatal Services
If you are 4 -10 weeks pregnant, have had no or little prenatal care and are interested in having an experienced midwife involved in your early care, for a phase of visits, message Vera or fill out Vera’s Client Intake Form. Once received, to begin your early pregnancy care, Vera will arrange a remote appointment within a week, and confirm this date and time by email. She will also provide you with a schedule of 3 apointments
Please note that as MSP only pays for one prenatal provider, Vera can only provide early pregnancy services to folk that have not been seen, or who have had only one visit with a walk-in clinic, or a doctor’s office. Vera provides requisitions needed for confirmation of pregnancy, as well as support and education about the pregnancy journey ahead. Her early pregnancy care is transferred to another midwife or a doctor for ongoing prenatal, labor and birth care, ~ 4 weeks after a client's last vist with her that takes place either between 10 -13weeks, or between 25 - 27weeks. Her early pregnancy clientele usually begin their ongoing prenatal, labor and birth care with another provider when they are either between 14 - 18 weeks, or between 26 -29 weeks pregnant. Their records are sent over to their next provider's office prior to their first appointment for ongoing prenatal, labor and birth care
Vera suggests for ongoing prenatal, labor and birth care that you contact Canopy Midwives . Her midwife colleagues are pleased to receive Vera’s clients’ into their practices providing that they have capacity. If you are on their wait-list, the person assigned to their front desk staff will email or call you. When you are contacted, you would let their office assistant, or a midwife doing intake work know that you are in Vera’s early pregnancy care and make an appointment for your ongoing care ~ 4 weeks after your last appointment with Vera. You would also inform Vera, which practice you have accessed care with and the date of your appointment. So that she can send your records to her colleagues front office, ideally before your first appointment for ongoing prenatal, labor, birth and postpartum care. This process facilitates a seamless transfer of care that avoids duplication of services or appointments.
For folk that cannot access ongoing midwifery services, or who have a preference for medical perinatal care, Vera has an arrangement with the family doctors in Lionsgate Maternity Clinic that she can transfer her clients into their care for the rest of their prenatal, labor and birth care.
Vera’s early pregnancy clients that are transferred to a doctor (family doctor or specialist obstetrician) for ongoing prenatal, labor and birth care, then have an option of returning to her practice after the birth of their babies for her after birth postpartum and newborn care.
EARLY PREGNANCY CARE
When folk first find out that they are pregnant, they often wonder what now?
Especially since getting an appointment with a doctor to confirm your pregnancy can often take time and because, it is sometimes difficult to connect with a midwifery practice that provides prenatal, labor, birth and postpartum care within the time frame that a person ‘just’ pregnant would like.
In this situation, Vera can provide personalized early pregnancy care, from when a person first discovers that they are pregnant, until ongoing prenatal labor and birth care has been found with another midwife or doctor.
Vera’s initial early prenatal care includes:
- a minimum of 2-3 visits that are a mixture of remote and in person appointments that are billed to MSP as a phase of care, at the time that a person’s care has been transferred to an ongoing prenatal labor & birth midwife or doctor
- Clients are provided with requisitions and interpretation of routine and optional pregnancy tests. In the event that they have undertaken prenatal testing with a doctor, or reproductive medicine specialist, they are provided with a consent for release of information, so that those records can be faxed over to Vera’s office
- Clients also receive life-style counseling, pregnancy, labor, birth & postpartum information, community resource information and reassurance
- During in-person visits Vera does a physical assessment that includes listening to the fetal heart beat
- Vera’s early pregnancy clients also have access to her Onpage email contact system for questions, or additional telephone consultation, outside of their scheduled visits, between 8am – midnight
- When care is transferred a copy of a client’s early pregnancy records is faxed to the midwife or doctor’s office assuming her clients’ on-going prental, labor and birth care.
- Vera transfers her clients directly to an obstetrical specialist when a complicated prengnancy is identified.
- In a chance that an early pregnancy is miscarrying, Vera is able to give her clients support. She can also refer clients to specialist services in these circumstances if this is needed.
There are benefits to personalised early pregnancy care. Allie came into Vera’s early pregnancy care at 5 weeks, after having 2 positive home pregnancy tests. She stayed until she moved out of province at the end of her 2nd trimester. She said had this to say about her experience:
“ Thank you for being such a calming, humorous, helpful, bright light at a time when I was very nervous about my first pregnancy. I genuinely looked forward to our visits and I am sorry they must come to an end, but will always look back fondly on these days and all the laughs we shared discovering our baby is healthy and hearing his heartbeat for the first time…”,
