Choosing your care provider
You’re pregnant, so what now? How do you choose your care provider?
Your choice of care provider — between midwife, doctor, or other care provider, and place of birth — hospital, home, birth centre — is one of the most important decisions you will make in your pregnancy. It can set the trajectory for not only your emotional but your physical health through pregnancy, labour and birth, and into postpartum.
The good news is you have lots of choices available to you. It’s not just a case of public or private, insurance or no insurance. We want you to choose your care provider once you know all of the options available to you, and what the evidence says about the experiences and outcomes with each model.
Spoiler alert — the evidence is clear, continuity of care in pregnancy is important. Care from a known midwife is considered the gold standard of care across the globe, and is associated with improved outcomes for mothers and babies in terms of not only physical health but emotional health too.
So what are we looking at?
Models of care
standard public care
caseload/MGP midwifery care
team midwifery care
shared care
private midwife
private obstetrician
+/- doula support
Place of birth
hospital — public hospital or private hospital
birth centre — public or private
homebirth
For more information about what’s involved in each of these choices, and links to evidence on the outcomes of each, check out our care provider page, and episodes 2 and 3 of the birthchoices podcast, where talk about the choices available to you, and with Dr Hazel Keedle about what the evidence says about women’s experiences of those models of care.
For a personalised discussion about what model of care may best suit your and your family’s values and goals, and be available in your area, book in for a mini or maxi birth choices appointment.
