Queenstown Midwife recommendation

Have you looked at the otago midwives website - there are some good profiles there. I'm think it'll cover Q/Town midwives too??
Google "otago midwives" and I think it'll come up...

Go for one o the midwives based at the hospital!

I have Sonya from Central Otago midwives. This is my first birth out of Dunedin so can't comment on all the whole experience just yet, but she's lovely! Am very happy with the standard of care she has given me (she's had to chase up the hospital several times! Not her fault at all and she kept annoying them til I got my appointment).
Definitely interview them, personality is everything really, you need to feel like you will be listened to and be confident you'll be competently advocated on behalf of

I had Sonya with my first, niw I changed to Charlotte for my second. I liked Sonya but she did let me down when I went into labor. At the start I rung her to notify I was in labor and she decided she was going off somewhere. Lucky Charlotte was there and she was very professional and amazing! Sonya is kind but I always felt she had other stuff to do when she came to visit. I wish I had gone with Charlotte first time around as I find she is very attentive and very easy to approach. Also she keeps me much better informed regarding test results and etc and I feel she is a little more thorough. She is very sweet and caring!

She was highly recommended to me by my family, friends, GP and the obstetrician. I have another friend that had a similar experience with Sonya and also changed to Charlotte. Skills wise there is nothing wrong with Sonya and Im sure you are in good hands too. With Central Otago Midwives you really cant go that wrong. They work really well together and are very professional. From what I ve heard its Sage Femme that you need to watch out for!

I would just like to mention that LittleAnthem has only posted twice in this forum, both times saying the same thing, but with no evidence given. As she is reccommending one Midwife in particular, even including the freephone number and dissing a competitor's practice I find this quite suspicious. I see her as a spammer for this reason and have reported her potentially damaging posts to the moderators, who don't seem to be present as still no reply and no action. Is this site moderated at all? There is a big difference between stating opinion and offering up supposed "facts" with no evidence, especially of a potentially damaging nature. It's just too easy to band stuff like this about on a public forum and if nothing is done then it unfortunatley remains forever on the site to pop up in google searches etc forever, I feel that is very unfair.

No I was not referring to homebirthing as a specialised skill, but your reference to Sage Femme "being under investigation", which you stated in both your posts and in fact is not true and could be quite damaging to their practice. It is one thing to recommend one's own favorite midwife and quite another to post damamging "facts" on another, I question your motivation for doing so.

No I am not a midwife, I just don't like injustice. I have twice been a client of Sage Femme as have many many of my friends and neighbours. I wouldn't have returned as a client if I was not happy with the care I recieved.

And while we are on the subject of the Midwifery Council, you may want to contact them yourself regarding midwives/trainee midwives posting on public forums as you stated in your other post that you are planning to train - I can tell you they are not in approval of this which is why unfortunately none of the actual midwives in question are able to come and answer your accusations directly.

Hi,

Thanks for your comments. For anyone else looking for a Queenstown midwife, my dr and a couple of friends recommended Lake Hayes Midwives to me or just the midwives that operate out of Queenstown hospital. As I'm due at Christmas and everyone wants to go on holiday Lake Hayes Midwives were booked out so I went with Jayne at the Hospital.

Jayne is perfectly nice and unfussy.

If you go with a midwife at Queenstown hospital you don't get them for your birth (if you want to give birth in a full service hospital they send you to Invercargill and you have to get another midwife for the birth) but I like that because there is 3 midwives at Queenstown hospital there will always be someone to see you in an emergency.

People who have had children tell me midwives are gold for the first week or so after giving birth. A Queenstown hospital midwife won't do home visits but you can stay in the maternity wing of Queenstown for a few days after giving birth and after being transferred back from a bigger hospital. They look after you and help you with feeding which seems like a pretty good service.

Hi hs. Congratulations on your pregnancy. You've received some excellent info on this thread so far. Unfortunatley I cannot recommend a central otago midwife, but I can give you some pointers from my own hard lesson learned.
* Choose a midwife who is nurse trained. Regardless of your own health and risk factors, every pregnancy is different. Low risk does not mean no risk, and I would expect the point of your pregnancy will be to have a happy healthy baby at the end of it. A nurse trained midwife is more likely to pick up abnormalities and medical issues. They are also more likely to work well with a specialist if it is needed.
* Question your midwife. Despite what one poster said above, personality is not everything. Safety, caution, knowledge and experience is much more important. Does your midwife have an access agreement with your hospital? Regardless of where you choose to labour/birth - you may end up there. Will your midwife be able to accompany you? Do they have an obstetrician that they work closely with? My sister had an excellent midwife who had a close working relationship with an OB. This got them all through three complicated births (posterior, posterior with meconium and a c-section for an ill presenting big baby). While the midwife did all she could to assist my sister to birth on her own, she never put my sister or the babies at risk to accomplish this.   She came highly recommended.
* If you choose home or birthing centre birth, investigate emergency plans carefully and realistically. Transfers during labour are not straight forward, and will not happen quickly even if you are only 5 minutes from the hospital. It takes time for ambulances to arrive, lines to go in, you and your baby to be stabilised etc. Things can go wrong very quickly, even in perfectly healthy, young, low risk, non-smoking women. Expect a transfer to take at least 30 minutes, somtimes more than an hour.
* When asking for recommendations, ask specifically for midwives who have coped well with difficult or unexpected circumstances with positive outcomes. Having someone who you can chat with through your pregnancy is all well and good, but it means nothing if they don't know what to do when things go pear shaped.
* NZ studies show 50% of pregnancies will require some medical assistance for the safety of mother or baby. This may be a bed-rest order, or it may be an emergency c-section. NZ has excellent medical equipment and specialists who are there for yours and your baby's protection. No-one wants you to need it. But most would agree it is better to use something (might just be a couple of extra scans) to ensure your baby is coping well, than to end up with a preventable problem.
* A preganancy is only 9 months out of your life, but it will dictate your baby's whole life. Labour is only (usually) lessthan 24 hours of your lifetime, but it is the most dangerous day of your new child's life. No matter how it happens, ensure your support people, midwife and birth partner included, know that you want everything done to ensure the safety of your baby and yourself. While forceps may sound horrendous early in pregnancy, when those forceps mean the difference between a live baby and a stillborn - the choice is easy. While induction generally does mean a stronger labour and can lead to more interventions, it does save lives. When you feel your baby kick, you can't wait to hear it cry, you want to see it's eyes taking in it's new world, you long to hear it giggle, and say 'dada'. Don't risk any of those things by insisting on the perfect 'birth experience' for yourself. Your birth will be what it will be - you cannot control it. You can do your best to prepare for it, but you must be ready to go with it. Listen to your body, and listen to your LMC, who you have hopefully drilled well. Your partner is likely to be your voice, so make sure he is involved and prepared as well. Our poor partners often feel quite disempowered during this process.
Ensure your partner understands and is ready to act on common warning signs, such as if you are feeling ignored or overruled, a lack of monitoring during late pregnancy or labour, apathy, a failure to progress during labour (long second stage labour especially), meconium in the liquor (IMO this should prompt an an OB consultation regardless of the quantity), and a lack of notes being recorded by the LMC.

You will soon be a Mum, and you will make many decisions in the best interest of your child - start now by being very thorough with your midwife investigations. Do not be scared to change midwife if you develop doubts that cannot be resolved. Mother's intuition starts early.
Best wishes for your pregnancy and birth.