Birth centres getting popular

The low volume centres are a safer alternative for women giving birth during the pandemic

Giving birth is a momentous and nerve wracking occasion and doing so in the middle of a pandemic can bring on a new set of worries. Many new mothers are turning to an age old practice to help them handle the stress — midwives.

Moupiya Ukil, who is six months into her first pregnancy, started off at a private hospital. “The experience felt very impersonal and detached, whatever questions I had were met with generic answers,” she says.

An example was when she asked if sex during pregnancy was safe. “The doctor brushed it aside, saying you have so many other things to do so why is this important. Everyone says don’t treat pregnancy as a sickness, but responses like this make you feel otherwise,” she explains.

Another concern was the high number of c-sections in the country. “I have seen that private hospitals tend to create a lot of panic and coerce women to opt for c-sections. And it’s seen as the norm. I didn’t want to go under the knife unnecessarily,” she explains.

In her search for an alternative she stumbled upon Birth Village, a midwife-led birth centre in Kochi. “A team member spent over an hour with me, answering my questions and explaining why the answers were what they were,” she says.

Moupiya explains that the session made her embrace her pregnancy and it made her switch to this care model. In fact until she found that Bengaluru has its own midwife-led birth centre, she was willing to travel all the way to Kochi for her delivery.

Priyanka Idicula, co-founder and director of the Birth Village, says that mothers from other states are not uncommon for them. “There have been almost 80 people who have travelled to the centre during the pandemic period alone. Since Karnataka had closed off its borders for a long time, there were not many but we still had seven people coming in from Bangalore,” she says.

The arriving mothers would have to adhere to the quarantine guidelines, Priyanka adds that they’ve had deliveries happen during the two-week period as well. “Women have full rights to access maternity care regardless of the situation. They come to the center as they would otherwise,” she says.

Midwife centers are notoriously far and few across the country. Priyanka, who has been in the field for the past 14 years, attributes this to the high level of burnout associated with the job. “”Once a woman has placed a trust in midwifery, continuity of care it means being on call 24/7, and that’s a tough order to live by. More centres could pop up as interest in this model is increasing, but I don’t expect a big boom,” she says.

Lucky for Bengaluru, the Birth Home brought midwifery to the city last year. Moupiya, who is now in their care, recalls her first appointment with Jenny, the center’s primary midwife, “She gave me two hours for all my questions. Even questions about a paediatrician was not pushed aside.”

Co-founder Meghana Naidu, says that while they were concerned at the beginning of the pandemic, they are doing great. “In fact many of our clients were happy that they didn’t have to go into a hospital. We are a low-risk, low-volume center. We don’t do more than five to eight births in a month, which means the number of people in the center are low to begin with,” she explains.

Once clients come in they are in close communication with the centre. “Video and phone calls have been important in maintaining this as we hope to help women through all aspects of their pregnancy and not just the medical aspect,” she says.

As for safety precautions, they are phasing out their consults and have just two appointments a day. This ensures that there is no crowding and allows for a thorough sanitation between consults, says Meghana.

These features are attracting more mothers. “They don’t have to sit in hospital waiting rooms, they are aware that the number of people they are exposed to are low,” she says. She adds that their scans too are not the long list of standard tests and are responsive to what’s happening in each individual pregnancy. “This too avoids the number of trips to diagnostic centres and lowers the risk of exposure,” she explains.

She says that Covid also means that the number of people present during the birth has been limited. “Apart from the birthing team and the mother, we only allow one other person to be there. This means that siblings, or other family members can’t be present,” she says.

Meghana adds that wearing a PPE kit means that you sometimes lose the personal connection that tends to happen during the process.

Home births in the city

Bengaluru doesn’t currently have a supportive infrastructure for home births, says Meghana Naidu, co-founder, Birth Home. She says they try to provide a home-like environment, which works because they have a back up team of obstetricians and hospital systems that they are able to access when in need. “In this city the travel time is extremely unpredictable, making home births risky and unsafe. That being said, there have been women who have delivered in this way, but the numbers remain low at less than six,” she says.