The three midwives in a new Wanganui business have already brought hundreds of babies into the world during their combined 34 years on the job.
They left their positions at Wanganui Hospital and formed Bumps Maternity Services in January. And they have had five births since then.
They offer home births and
hospital births, and water births either at home in a bathtub or at Wanganui Hospital. One of them, Deb Beatson, does acupuncture for common pregnancy problems such as nausea, heartburn, constipation and backache. She can also use acupuncture to start an overdue labour, avoiding the need for medical inducement.
All of the three worked together at Wanganui Hospital for six years.
Jacqui Paine and Pauline Grant-Burgess were in antenatal, seeing women during pregnancy and up to the time of birth. But that wasn't enough for them - they wanted to see the women through their labour, birth and first weeks with babies.
In their new business, each woman will have her own mothers and babies to look after, starting right from pregnancy, through labour and birth and ending six weeks after birth.
They anticipate each seeing 40 to 60 women through this process every year - which means they will be responsible for perhaps 180 of the 750-odd births in the Wanganui Hospital region.
Midwives have unexpected lives. They can be called away urgently at any time of the day or night when women are in labour.
The Bumps team plans to provide a seamless service to mothers - and protect their own private lives - by getting each client to meet all of them.
They will share a single cellphone number and pager and if one is busy another will be able to step in.
The three have a room with Wanganui Osteopathic Clinic at 195A Wicksteed St. Each has a clinic for their mothers there on one morning a week.
There will probably be a midwife there during working hours if women want to drop in. Records will be kept there, on a computer.
Women can go directly to the Bumps midwives or be referred by their GPs.
