Despite COVID challenges MCNS current 2020-2021 team of two, Vera Berard and Erika Mitchell have been delighted to be with laboring folk, attending their births and welcoming their babies.
Life continues, folk get pregnant and babies get born… between February 2020 and March 2021, Midwifery Care North Shore has provided care to approximately 58 families.
Our gratitude extends to the doulas, our midwifery colleagues, student midwives, our nursing and physician colleagues that assist us meet our individual clients’ needs: – 66% of babies were born via a spontaneous vaginal birth – 51% occurred in hospital and 15% at home. Our team expanded to include LGH specialist obstetrical, paediatric and anesthetic services for approximately 34% of our clientele. 12% of babies were born via an assisted vaginal birth and 22 % via a C/Section, of these 2.5% were elective and 19.5% were in labor.
A year since the start of the pandemic, we have settled into a new way of providing care. Our clients ‘go with the flow’ attitude and resilience have been an inspiration to us. Half of our visits are now routinely being done remotely, using a medical video conferencing platform, and the rest are in-person visits in our office or our clients’ homes. We have been touched by the kindness and generosity of our North Vancouver community that in the beginning of COVID provided our practice with masks and gowns for office and home visiting use.
This year, in order to help us meet public health community infection control standards, Marguerite from the community sewing group voluntarily completed reupholstering our office furniture with wipeable, colorful cushion covers and a sofa slip cover extra-ordinaire for the cost of the materials!
One our most expensive personal protective equipment changes have been the acquisition of prescription googles. While googles still fog up, they do so significantly less than regular glasses and a protective shield. Besides embarking on a process of selecting and becoming comfortable with wearing work clothes and personal protective gear in the office, hospital and community, we had to plan and implement changes into how our office equipment and supplies, as well as homebirth equipment and supplies could be stored and cleaned. This went through an evolution too and has become more streamlined. We now have one wipeable midwife home box on wheels that contains our regular and emergency equipment in wipeable bags or containers.
Since our office is a small space. Our biggest and most expensive single office expense has been the acquisition of an air purifier to help clean air before, during and after use.
This has also been useful when providing midwives continuing education in small physically distancing groups.
To keep folk and ourselves safe, the number of people meeting in our office has had to be reduced. We can only meet with partners and children remotely, or in our clients’ homes. This has been one of our most difficult and sad changes. We miss seeing families and enjoy doing so when we can. Home visiting is different for everyone nowadays, as folk wear masks too and also limit the number of people in their houses.
Acute health care workers, including midwives have recently received their COVID vaccination.
BC’s vaccination roll-out brings us hope that all citizens that want to be vaccinated will receive their vaccinations soon. When Vera received her vaccination, it helped her imagine a day when partners and children will be back in our offices and when we shall all be able to hug again. Hugs are one missed human interaction!
Pregnant folk wanting information on COVID vaccination can go to the SOGC statement https://www.sogc.org/common/Uploaded%20files/Latest%20News/SOGC_Statement_COVID-19_Vaccination_in_Pregnancy.pdf
Those that would like to participate in research can click on the link to the Canadian COVID-19 Vaccine Registry for Pregnant and Lactating Women – Reproductive Infectious Diseases Program http://med-fom-ridprogram.sites.olt.ubc.ca/vaccine-surveillance/
The pandemic has definitely had an effect on everyone’s emotional health. As we all continue to do our best to navigate through these uncertain times, we also continue to encourage ourselves, clients, families, neighbors and colleagues to be mindful, to be kind, to keep hand sanitizing, mask wearing and physically distancing and to reach out when feeling low.
Mindful living stress reduction and counseling services
http://mindful-living.ca/
Mindfulness–Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) with Dr. Kasim Al-Masha
http://www.mbsrbc.ca/pages/classes.htm
Family Services North Shore
https://www.familyservices.bc.ca