Choosing Your Care Provider During Pregnancy
Do you want to have a positive pregnancy and birth? You must put your energy and dedication into making sure you have the “right” care providers.
A lot of people put time and money into choosing the right cot, the styled nursery, the pram with all of the features they want. If you’re already pregnant, chances are you’ve already started to look into those things. Yes, those things are so much fun to explore and when you’ve dreamt of having a baby for a long time, stylising a nursery is something that a lot of people have thought about. I want you to enjoy all of those moments. I want you to put even more time into choosing your care team.
1 in 3 mothers describe their birth as traumatic. And while birth trauma can definitely happen if a mum fears for the health of her or her baby, birth trauma can also happen when a woman feels a loss of control, when she feels unheard or if she doesn’t feel respected. This figure is definitely too high and I only bring it into your awareness to highlight how, without choosing the pregnancy care model/team that is the best fit for you, it’s very easy to end up feeling like it was a negative experience.
I truly believe, I know it because I’ve seen it, how with the right care team- no matter which turns and twists pregnancy and birth take that the way you feel about the overall experience can be very largely influenced by the team of people that had around you at that time.
To help make sure you have the team that’s a best fit for you here are 3 questions you need to ask yourself:
1. What kind of pregnancy support, birth support and post partum do you want? Dream it up and then it’s easier to find the team that fits that. Would you like all of your pregnancy care visits to be with a female or male or it doesn’t matter? Do you want to have the same 1 or 2 people seeing you or your open to switching? Do you want to know which midwives are going to be there with you at your birth or you feel confident in you and your partner and happy to have which ever midwife is there that day? Do you want to birth at home, at a birth centre or the hospital? For your post partum- would you like to have a longer stay in the hospital or get back home faster and have post natal visits at home? Once you’ve answered these questions then speak it over with me in your first pregnancy appointment (or your own care provider) to help determine which care model might be the closest fit to what you’ve described.
2. Please be guided by what preferences you want for your birth rather than whether you have private health insurance or not. Asking yourself the guiding question of what you want your birth to look like can really help find the model that might be best suited to help you have that type of birth.
3. Consider who else you want in your team. I encourage holistic care which is why mostly all of my fertility patients continue on with Naturopathic Pregnancy Care along with their midwife or OB. Who else do you want in your team- a chiropractor, osteopath, pregnancy specialised acupuncturist, an antenatal counsellor, a pregnancy massage therapist, a pregnancy yoga teacher. A holistic model of care means that you’re having your needs met in all areas- your physical, your mental and your emotional needs. This is one of your most amazing and biggest transformations, it’s the time to focus on absolute optimal health in all of the areas (for you and your baby’s future health) so I want to make sure you have the team around you to help you do that.
To watch me chat about this all in more detail so that you can help create your positive pregnancy and birth click on the video below. Please share it with your friend who may be pregnant too because it’s really important to me that women have a positive experience as they become mothers.
