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Sunday will be Mothers' Day so I wanted this week to support something motherhood-related. Like midwifery.
When I went through pregnancy and childbirth forty years ago, using the services of a midwife was not a realistic option for me, though I was certainly interested in the idea. I later joined the Midwifery Task Force of Ontario and just recently discovered their 15th (Summer 1987) newsletter, The Midwifery Issue, in my files.
I found hospital birth to be a rather depersonalizing experience and was glad that our daughter's family in Quebec was able to avail themselves of the care and personal attention offered by their midwives.
Up until a few weeks ago, Laurentian University in Sudbury offered the only bilingual midwifery education program in Ontario. That program has now been eliminated in the wake of Laurentian's recent financial woes. A great pity, because Laurentian's midwifery grads were in high demand, often serving in remote northern and indigenous communities. If you care about this, you may wish to make your concerns known in some way, such as by signing this petition:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScuXSRRxrcKVD8VpL6gXNc_1WaczEKSYTzVycB0Kh0CjgsqsA/viewform
The two remaining university-based midwifery programs in Ontario are offered by Ryerson in Toronto and McMaster in Hamilton. McMaster is already a high-profile hub for health sciences research and teaching and will hopefully be able to fill some of the gap created by Laurentian's closure:
https://healthsci.mcmaster.ca/midwifery
The "News" section of the site is well worth a browse, with items on the relative risks of home and hospital births, pandemic-era pregnancy & childbirth, polyamory and more. But what particularly caught my eye was the information about the Excellence in Midwifery Student Leadership Scholarship:
https://healthsci.mcmaster.ca/midwifery/news-events/news/news-article/2020/10/19/excellence-in-midwifery-student-leadership-scholarship
That's where I ultimately decided to direct my donation in the belief that with limited funds to donate, it was where I could feel I was making a visible difference.
When I went through pregnancy and childbirth forty years ago, using the services of a midwife was not a realistic option for me, though I was certainly interested in the idea. I later joined the Midwifery Task Force of Ontario and just recently discovered their 15th (Summer 1987) newsletter, The Midwifery Issue, in my files.
I found hospital birth to be a rather depersonalizing experience and was glad that our daughter's family in Quebec was able to avail themselves of the care and personal attention offered by their midwives.
Up until a few weeks ago, Laurentian University in Sudbury offered the only bilingual midwifery education program in Ontario. That program has now been eliminated in the wake of Laurentian's recent financial woes. A great pity, because Laurentian's midwifery grads were in high demand, often serving in remote northern and indigenous communities. If you care about this, you may wish to make your concerns known in some way, such as by signing this petition:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScuXSRRxrcKVD8VpL6gXNc_1WaczEKSYTzVycB0Kh0CjgsqsA/viewform
The two remaining university-based midwifery programs in Ontario are offered by Ryerson in Toronto and McMaster in Hamilton. McMaster is already a high-profile hub for health sciences research and teaching and will hopefully be able to fill some of the gap created by Laurentian's closure:
https://healthsci.mcmaster.ca/midwifery
The "News" section of the site is well worth a browse, with items on the relative risks of home and hospital births, pandemic-era pregnancy & childbirth, polyamory and more. But what particularly caught my eye was the information about the Excellence in Midwifery Student Leadership Scholarship:
https://healthsci.mcmaster.ca/midwifery/news-events/news/news-article/2020/10/19/excellence-in-midwifery-student-leadership-scholarship
That's where I ultimately decided to direct my donation in the belief that with limited funds to donate, it was where I could feel I was making a visible difference.
