Coalition for Breech Birth - National Capital Region & Eastern Ontario

In an effort to demonstrate the need for midwives to be the most responsible person for vaginal breech births at the Ottawa Hospital, we would like to publish a series of breech birth stories.  The only requirement is that they have some connection to Ontario. The connection could be as simple as a consult about breech with an Obstetrician who practices in the province. 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  

In November 2018, in the lead up to the presentation by consumers to the hospital board, the Ottawa Citizen published an article about consumers wanting midwives to have breech privileges at TOH. One thing that jumped out at me as I reread the article is the description of the situation as "long-simmering concerns." We are now nearly five and a half years later and nothing has changed since this article was first published. People carrying breech babies are still being forced to transfer care from their midwife to an obstetrician, and are oftentimes being coerced into c-sections that they do not want or their babies are delivered vaginally without the latest evidence based techniques.

Around the same time as the airing of Betty-Anne Daviss' White Coat, Black Art episode, an important article that she co-authored was published. It concluded that "upright vaginal breech delivery was associated with reductions in duration of the second stage of labor, maneuvers required, maternal/neonatal injuries, and cesarean rate when compared with vaginal delivery in the dorsal position." Midwifery clients usually prefer to be upright while giving birth to a breech baby, however, most obstetricians in Ottawa continue insist that women carrying breech babies push on their backs. This is another important reason why consumers want Ottawa hospitals to respect midwives' scope of practice and to no longer require a transfer of care from a midwife to an obstetrician when a baby is breech.  Another important finding from this article is that none of the births in this study required forceps. There's an obstetrician in Ottawa who insists on using forceps for ever...

On November 5th, 2016 a group of us gathered at Betty-Anne Daviss' house to listen to her episode of White Coat, Black Art . The group included several women for whom Betty-Anne had caught their breech babies, several women who were denied Betty-Anne's care due to TOH's refusal to grant midwives breech privileges and several people who had been babies (both breech and cephalic) that were caught by Betty-Anne.

This article was published on November 4th, 2016 on CBC Radio's website. It accompanied an interview of Betty-Anne Davis that was originally aired on the same day on White Coat, Black Art . It includes an interview with Dr. Daniel Moreau who was the chief of obstetrics and gynecology at the Montfort hospital when Betty-Anne was granted breech privileges in April 2013. You can listen to the interview here: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-75-white-coat-black-art/clip/10686076-into-breech