Facts & Figures
- Registered Midwives in Alberta provide care for approximately 8% of birthing people and their babies. Midwives in Canada provide care for 11.8% of the country’s babies with B.C. and Ontario leading the country at 23% and 18% midwifery assisted births respectively.
- Publicly funded midwifery care is available here in Alberta, as well as B.C., Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Prince Edward Island, and the NWT.
Birthing people can choose to deliver their babies either at home, a birth centre, or in the hospital with an Alberta Registered Midwife. - Low intervention rates among midwifery clients, along with the option of out-of-hospital birth, offer significant savings for the Alberta Health Care system. A 2016 report on the state of maternity care in Alberta, found that out-of-hospital births with a midwife offer a savings of $2055/birth and in-hospital births with a midwife offer a savings of $540/birth when compared to maternity care with an OBGYN.
- Midwives have been registered in Alberta since 1992, and the Alberta Association of Midwives has been in operation since 1986.
In Alberta, the number of birthing families receiving midwifery care has increased significantly since public funding began in 2009. Midwives attended 975 births in 2009 and, just 10 years later, over 4000 in 2019. - There are over 140 Registered Midwives in Alberta, a five-fold increase since public funding began in 2009.
- Mount Royal University is the only educational institution in Alberta to offer a Bachelor of Midwifery program, which started in September 2011.
- Midwives are independent contractors to midwifery practices who are compensated by Alberta Health Services.
- Midwifery is a partnership based on mutual respect. With midwifery care, the client is the center of the childbirth experience and has great influence on their own health and wellbeing. The practice of midwifery is based on the individual, recognizing each client’s unique strengths and needs. Midwifery care promotes self-care, growth, awareness and confidence, and is provided in a manner that is flexible, creative, empowering and supportive.
- Midwifery actively encourages informed choice throughout the childbearing cycle by providing relevant, objective information to facilitate decision-making. The practice of midwifery enables individuals to develop the understanding, skills and motivation necessary to take on the responsibility for and control of their own health. ( Alberta Association of Midwives)
