CamBay moms may soon give birth closer to home

This bassinette has been ready and waiting for its first newborn baby at the Kitikmeot Health Centre since its opening in 2005. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

The $20-million Kitikmeot Health Centre is equipped with a state-of-the-art delivery table, which has never been used. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Starting in January, the Kitikmeot Health Centre in Cambridge Bay will start offering midwife-attended births to pregnant women who are a low risk of complications during delivery. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Soon pregnant women in Cambridge Bay won’t be obliged to travel south to deliver their babies.

Starting early in the new year, Cambridge Bay women who are at low risk of complications during their delivery will be able to give birth under a midwife’s care at the Kitikmeot health centre, said Clara Evalik, the Kitikmeot director for Nunavut’s health and social services department.

And all pregnant women in the community will receive care during and after their pregnancy from midwives at the health centre, Evalik said.

The $20-million health centre has been fully equipped to handle deliveries since it opened in the fall of 2005.

But up to now no one has used its padded delivery table, the new crib with its teddy-bear decorated sheet or the comfy rocker.

That’s because a lack of nurses and doctors and housing for medical staff — when they could be hired, as well as a fire which damaged part of the new health centre, set back the original plan to see midwife-attended deliveries take place in Cambridge Bay.

“That was always the idea. We just had to say, ‘let’s do it and make it work.’ It’s happening now, so hopefully it will be successful,” Evalik said.

One midwife, Sharyne Fraser, has already arrived in Cambridge Bay to work at the health centre.

But the plan is to have two full-time midwives on staff, Evalik said.

The midwives will also be involved in a midwifery training program to offered through Nunavut Arctic College in Cambridge Bay.

The program, slated to start this coming January, involves a four-level BA degree program.

After successful completion of the program’s first level, students will receive a Maternity Care Worker certificate.

After successful completion of the third level, they will receive a diploma in midwifery, write the Canadian midwifery registration exam and work towards completing the required skills and numbers of birth to qualify for registration as a midwife.

The student can then choose to begin a one-year supervised practice or enter a fourth year to complete a BA.

The program, which will only have about four or five students, is still open to interested applicants, Evalik said.

During 2010, midwives will likely deliver many of the approximately 40 babies born to Cambridge Bay women every year.

Pregnant women from other communities in the Kitikmeot should also eventually be able to come to Cambridge Bay to deliver with a midwife, Evalik said.

Nurses support the plan to start midwife-attended deliveries in the health centre because the midwives will be able take over much of the routine maternal care, Evalik said.

But it may be a challenge to convince expectant mothers that delivering in Cambridge Bay is as safe as traveling to Yellowknife or Edmonton.

“People have become accustomed to leaving so we’re going to have the change the focus, [by saying] ‘here and it’s available now in the community and you have an option now.’ So we’re going to make sure it works. We’re going to have to change the attitudes and say it’s a safe environment to deliver,” Evalik said.

In case of an emergency, a medevac is available on a 24-7 basis, she said.