How To Pick Your Provider

I’d love to give you a sneak peek into what care is like for our 1:1 Birth Support Client. If you’re one of our clients, you receive pelvic floor therapy services before and after birth, birth preparation services, and in-person support during your birth experience with one of our amazing birth coaches who are also doulas.

First things first, let’s talk about how to pick your pregnancy care provider. This is written for anyone who is choosing a hospital birth since as a practice we focus on supporting hospital births in Northeast Florida, at this time. More on that another day.

What are your priorities? Do you want someone whose office is close to your home? What about the personality of the provider(s)? What about the type of provider? There’s a lot to consider, right? 

If you have health insurance and you want to use it, the hospitals your plan covers are the best place to start looking since each hospital or hospital group has groups of providers with privileges to attend births there. Providers in the area don’t usually have the ability to support births at any hospital you choose. They are bound by their agreements with insurance companies and hospital systems. So, if you’re trying to get the most insurance coverage for your pregnancy and birth, we recommend first figuring out your top 1-2 hospitals from the list. 

How do you make your list? 

You can look online at the hospital websites to see virtual tours of the labor and delivery area. If it’s a consideration for you, you can also look to see which hospitals on the list have Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) for babies who need extra help after birth. See if you can find out if they can handle the babies with the most special needs. That also might be important to you. Note that if your baby needs extra care and the hospital does not have a NICU, your baby will have to be transferred to one that does. Some families are willing to take the risk of being separated from their babies so they can enjoy the experience of having their baby at a familiar hospital close to them or one that has a fantastic reputation for handling labor and delivery. No choice is wrong. What else can you do to figure out your preference? You can search local mom groups online for recommendations and experiences they’ve had with various hospitals. You can ask your friends who have had babies recently in your area. Just remember to take their recommendations with a grain of salt because every birth experience is unique. 

Once you’ve picked your top 1-2 hospitals, you can find out which practice groups work out of those hospitals. You can cross check these groups with the recommendations you’ve received from your network of local friends and family. If you have an established relationship with a primary care provider, maybe they have a good referral for you.  

Of that list of potential providers and practice groups, you’ll want to try to find out about their bedside manner and their style of practice. When you ask around about personal experiences or recommendations from other healthcare providers, you’ll still want to consider that everyone has their own unique experience and your experience may not be the same. Listen for a pattern. Did twin mamas have a chance to birth their babies vaginally? Did they get to have a trial of labor after c-section? How many people are commenting on the rudeness of the providers? How many are commenting on how well cared for they felt? A note here, as a healthcare provider myself, I can vouch for how weary we can get from taking care of sad or difficult cases day in and day out. It’s not an excuse for poor patient care, but a provider who is rude one day, may be the most skilled person you want caring for you and your baby should an emergency arise. With that, consider their reputation in the community for how good they are at their job of saving lives and protecting their patients. Weighing both bedside manner and skill is important. For some, one may be more important than the other. 

What kind of provider are you looking for? Would you like a Certified Nurse Midwife to attend your birth if you’re having a vaginal birth? If so, should you need a surgical birth, how comfortable are with having a physician who you don’t know well performing it? If you know that you might have a surgical birth what type of physician would you like to perform that surgery? Are you looking for an MD or DO? Do you know what the difference is?  

Whether or not the midwives in a group attend the births is something to ask when you’re interviewing provider groups. Nurse Midwives who attend lower risk vaginal births only attend births at a couple hospital systems in Northeast Florida. When it comes to the doctors, you’ll see M.D. and D.O. written behind their name. While they generally have the same privileges to perform surgeries, their training background and philosophy of care can differ. Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine,  as compared with Doctors of Medicine, are trained in a more holistic whole-person approach. They also receive extra training in osteopathic manipulative medicine, a hands-on approach for diagnosing and treating patients. Doctors of Medicine are primarily trained in allopathic medicine. 

When thinking about the size of the practice, you can ask yourself if you’d rather have a large one with 6 providers who are rotating through and meeting you at each visit. Or, would you rather have a small practice where you are guaranteed to see one of those two or three providers at your birth. In a smaller practice, you’ll get to know them pretty well throughout your pregnancy.

So far, we’ve covered the following preferences: where you’d like to have your baby and who you’d like to provide your care. Now, you’re ready to pick your pregnancy care provider. It can feel daunting! We love to guide our clients through this process and if you’d like some help, we’re here for you. You can start by booking your consultation here. Congratulations! You are on your way!

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