Interview Q's for Homebirth Midwives

[fides]

Hi, ladies!

I am interviewing midwives this week for our potential home birth. I've found loads of Q's to ask online, but i don't want to get bogged down in 100 questions during the interviews. So, i need your help.

If you had 3 questions to ask a potential midwife, what would they be?

Thanks so much in advance!!

 

[Kess]

I think you need to know what your priorities are before you can narrow down your three questions. For instance, two questions I asked when deciding if my current MW was for me were 1) what percentage of her women transferred and more importantly for me 2) how often do her women keep an intact perineum? (tearing/being cut is a major fear of mine). But if you're not particularly worried about tearing, the second question might not be so important to you, your priorities might be more along the lines of her experience with water birth if that was what you wanted, or something else completely. I'd definitely ask something open ended to get a good feel for her though, perhaps about her overall approach to and philosophy of birth?

 

[fides]

Thanks! I don't know what my priorities are (other than wanting natural), since this will be our 1st live birth. I'm going to ask more than 3 - i just want to narrow my list down and i wanted to get a feel of what others in this forum found to be useful Q's... I really like your suggestion with open-ended - i probably have too many closed ones in my list...

 

[Mervs Mum]

Unfortunately the system in the UK means we generally don't interview mws: they're allocated. Hopefully some of the US women will be along soon

 

[bky]

For just 3 I'd personally ask something along these lines
-what are your guidelines for transfer (this has the potential to be a huuuuuge question but things to look at are meconium in the waters, baby heart rate, fetal presentation, length of labour vs progression)
-what postpartum care do you offer (in terms of breastfeeding support, mother and baby checks, stitching and so on)
-How can you support me if I do need a transfer? (ie does the MW have birth centre or hospital rights, will she then act as a labour support person, will she still provide postpartum care and so on)

Here our midwives are responsible for 6 weeks of PP care and a lot of the referrals if we have BF issues or similar, so I have a lot of other specific questions for myself relating to VBAC, BF support, going overdue and so on.

 

[NaturalMomma]

This can be printed out
https://www.mothersownbirth.com/questions for midwives.pdf

 

[Bournefree]

Umm if I had only 3?? It's tricky, but I've decided on.

1 - Can you tel me about the last home birth you attended? (this will hopefull give a feel of what they are like and how they acted in the situation)

2 - What do you bring with you? (then that covers all the what if's and comfort measures too; such as tennis balls for massage, mirror to see and IMPORTANTLY they should be telling you that they will bring a wealth of experience too!)

3 - How do you think I should prepare for the birth? (This will give you an idea of what there attitude towards a labouring women is. I.e if they say "you don't need to prepare I'll do everything" - perhaps they will be a bit hands on for you.. or they coud be saying "you don't need to prepare, as your body know how to do this" Or they could give you pointers on hypno birthing, labour and birth positions, any stuff you might like to have to add to your comfort and security etc, ect)

XXxX

 

[Kess]

Also ask for referrences? I found it helpful to talk to previous clients/patients of my MW before deciding to go with her, and a simple "Can you tell me about Jo?" worked well with them, they tended to talk forever and ever about how she'd been with them both in pregnancy, during the birth and postpartum, and I got a really good feel for how she'd be with me.

I'd definitely say start with an open ended question, as that might bring up threads you want to pursue from her answer to that question, and it also feels more like a discussion than you firing short questions at her and her answering yes or no.

 

[fides]

wow - you ladies are great!! love the questions you guys have singled out - thank you so much!