Cheam Midwifery

Midwives: are autonomous practitioners who are specialists in low-risk pregnancy, child, and postpartum. They generally strive to help women to have a healthy pregnancy and natural birth experience.

(gotta love wikipedia!) here is the link if you'd like to continue to read about the history and profession: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwifery

Meet Joy and Cheryl, the women behind the new midwifery clinic that opened recently downtown. Cheam Midwifery is located on Main Street in Chilliwack, a year too late for me! Last fall Joy (on the left side below) birthed our fourth baby girl in our home! I had never had a midwife with the previous children, and obviously not a home birth so I have a good comparison of both. I absolutely loved having midwives, the care before during and after is like none other I had before. Not that I had terrible experiences with our family Dr. because we didn't, but there is just something homegrown and comfortable with how the midwives cared for me and baby.

While Joy is from around here, Cheryl is from the UK, where midwives are the leading health care professionals attending a majority of births. I asked them each why they started their careers in this field...

A bit about Cheryl,

I have been absolutely fascinated by childbirth since I was very young. I remember watching birth programs on tv with my mom, and I remember the midwife visiting when my brother & sister were born. Becoming a midwife just seemed like the natural thing to do! I love midwifery and the privilege of being there on such a momentous journey in a woman's life. Every birth is unique and individual, and I love the excitement of a new baby arriving.

Joy's story....

I was a civil engineering technologist and I had just given birth to my second daughter Kyla. Around this time in my life I started to realize that I was more passionate about pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding then I was about designing roadways and bridges. So I started to look into all things related to childbirth. This lead me to becoming trained as first a doula and then later as a LLL leader. (http://www.lllc.ca/)

What I liked about being a doula is that I could work very part time and be home with my children and I could also satisfy my need to support women during their births. As a doula I loved providing women with information about birth and offering to support them but what I found very frustrating was that women`s choices were not being supported by their obstetrical care providers. So shortly after the birth of my third daughter, Brianna I started the long process of becoming a midwife. I wanted to provide women with the risks and benefits of tests and procedures and then support them as best I could during their pregnancy, birth and post partum. I wanted to support women who believed that their bodies were made to have babies without intervention. I wanted to be a part of a movement in our country that was created to preserve normal low risk childbirth and autonomy in child bearing women. Ultimately I wanted to be a part of rebuilding in Canada what Chery was raised with in the UK... where every woman has a midwife.

I was interested in opening a Chilliwack practice because I feel it is important to keep birth within a community. Until we opened Cheam Midwifery, the women of Chilliwack had to leave their community to access midwifery care. Not only did this remove birth from the community this also restricted women without transportation. And so... Cheam Midwifery was born.