Coalition for Breech Birth - National Capital Region & Eastern Ontario

This article was published in the Ottawa Citizen on May 31st, 2015 and it highlights the Montfort Hospital winning the Hospital Integration Award by the Association of Ontario Midwives. In April 2013, midwives started attending vaginal breech births at the Montfort Hospital. Now more than 10 years later, women continue to ask TOH to allow midwives to practice within their full scope. We continue to make this request primarily due to the fact that many women are not allowed to attempt a vaginal breech birth with a midwife at the Montfort because they fall outside of the hospital's catchment area. Their next best option is TOH with an OBGYN which can vary from a coerced c-section to a vaginal breech delivery with an unnecessary episiotomy and the use of forceps without consent. Another issue still facing TOH is the cap on the number of midwives who can practice at the Civic. This has continued since this article was published nearly 9 years ago and is highlighted in the following quo...

Here is our very first breech birth story! Thanks to Brigitte for sharing her positive experience! Also, we are still looking for more breech birth stories, so if you have one that you'd like to share, please email it to us at  cbb.ncr.east.ont@gmail.com Brigitte writes:  I have a special breech story that I would like to share from a small northeastern community. My name is Brigitte and I live in Kapuskasing, Ontario. I have two healthy boys, ages 5 and 2. My husband and I chose to deliver both our boys in Timmins, Ontario (about 2 hours from Kapuskasing) as we felt it was the best option. Our first son was born without a hitch at the Timmins hospital with Dr. X who was absolutely amazing throughout the entire process. Of course, when I found out I was pregnant with baby #2, I wanted to have Dr. X again. Dr. X was also expecting a baby around the same time as I, which was a little worrisome but I also knew that there was a great team of OBGYNs there.  At 33 we...

We have updated one of our requirements for submitting a breech birth story. We are now accepting stories that have a connection to Ontario, not just Eastern Ontario. The connection could be as simple as a consult about breech with an Obstetrician who practices in Ontario. We want to demonstrate the need for midwives to be the most responsible person for vaginal breech births, so we are publishing a series of breech birth stories. We want to hear all types of stories: births that went exactly as planned, births that nothing went as planned and everything in between. When submitting your breech birth story, please include the year of birth and how you would like to be attributed (full name, first name, anonymous or something else entirely). You can submit your breech birth stories to the following email address: cbb.ncr.east.ont [at] gmail.com  

Here is an article first published on June 17th, 2009 in the Globe and Mail. This article covers the recent release of the SOGC guidelines for vaginal breech birth. One of the things that is mentioned in the article is that these new guidelines are part of the SOGC's effort to promote normal childbirth. This has not happened across the board in Ottawa as it relates to breech birth. Aside from breech births attended by midwives at the Montfort, people carrying breech babies are often still subjected to unnecessary episiotomies and forcep deliveries when a vaginal breech birth is infrequently offered. This highlights one of the reasons why we are pushing for midwives to be able to practice within their full scope and to have breech privileges at other hospitals: so that more people can be trained in physiological breech birth.

 A timeline of significant events related to the vaginal breech birth issue in Ottawa, Ontario.  

Coalition for Breech Birth - National Capital Region & Eastern Ontario is an offshoot of the grassroots organization, Coalition for Breech Birth . Like the Coalition for Breech Birth , we also advocate for the return of vaginal birth to the normal options offered to women with breech babies as well as focusing on issues specifically affecting the National Capital Region of Canada and Eastern Ontario. Currently, our focus is working with midwives to get hospitals to recognize midwives' full scope of practice. Midwives' scope of practice in Ontario includes vaginal breech birth and vaginal birth of twins yet most hospitals in the Ottawa area do not allow midwives to be the most responsible person for either of these. L'Hôpital Montfort does allow midwives' with vaginal breech birth experience to be the most responsible person but The Ottawa Hospital (both the General and Civic campuses) and the Queensway-Carleton Hospital do not.  In an effort to demonstrate the need...