Long-awaited midwifery care finally arrives in Fredericton

With the first registered midwives in the province accepting clients this week, families in the Fredericton region will finally have access to midwifery care.

But the long-awaited program comes too little too late for some New Brunswick families.

“We wanted one with him but it wasn’t quite accessible at the time so we just missed it,” said Karly Nickerson of Fredericton, whose son was born several months before the program was launched.

READ MORE: Fredericton health clinic now offering midwifery services, 1st time in N.B.

In fact, he was born roughly nine months after it was first announced.

“It is a project that has been discussed for quite some time, I am aware,” said Geri Geldart, vice-president clinical of Horizon Health Network.

Midwifery became a regulated profession in the province in 2010.

But it’s taken roughly seven years for the province to hire its first two midwives.

Ashley Kaye was the first midwife to have been hired in the province and says she started seeing patients this past week.

“We can finally call the women who are on our waiting list and let them know that they can finally come into our care, and it has been a pretty thrilling experience and they have been very excited to hear from us,” said Kaye.

WATCH: Midwifery pilot program coming to Fredericton

1:57 Midwifery pilot program coming to Fredericton

The province announced in December 2016 that it would hire four midwives for its clinic in Fredericton, but only two have been hired so far.

“We do have a third who will be joining us shortly, and hope to have an announcement on a fourth soon as well,” said Geldart.

Kaye says they are making their way through the 25 to 30 people currently on the waiting list.

“We’ve been taking in patients that are due in December and beyond, so hopefully the first couple weeks of December, we’ll have some babies born. It will be very exciting,” Kaye said.

New Brunswick has long been one of the only four provinces and territories in Canada that didn’t have regulated midwives. So advocates for the long-awaited program hope the service will be expanded across the entire province soon.

But that prospect is still in its infancy, according to Geldart.

“It is hard to say at this point, what the uptake will be among the residents of New Brunswick. That project will tell us if this is a service that New Brunswickers want,” she said.