Maternal Health Services

Prenatal classes are held each quarter for the 16 prenatal clients and family members in the community. The Community Health Nurse visits the known prenatal clients at least once a month and collaborates with their primary health care provider to ensure that our prenatal clients are being seen routinely.

We had one prenatal client who did not access any prenatal care or services with the doctor, nursing or the midwife during the pregnancy until the baby was delivered in Little Current. She was an experienced mother with 3 children and there were no adverse events. As a result, the nursing department has been actively promoting our program with each newsletter that is distributed every quarter to all households in M’Chigeeng.

This has been a year of transition for this program with the midwife from Manitoulin Midwifery retiring this year and a new midwife taking her place. The collaborative efforts with the retiring midwife will be greatly missed. She had been instrumental in the increased number of home births and wonderful prenatal care available to our young families. This year she did a few at home water births with some of young mothers, with families present for the births.

The CPNP program is a real benefit to the efforts of our nursing staff to provide babies with the best start in the first year of life. Our CHN and CHR visit all our known prenatal clients and provide prenatal classes each quarter with incentives for the new families. The CPNP program also encouraged our young mothers to continue breastfeeding as long as possible with incentives and health teaching.

For our Postnatal Program all the new babies and parents are visited at home upon discharge from the hospital and are provided with a gift basket, assessed, and programs at the health centre are promoted. The new babies of 2007 were welcomed with an official Baby Welcoming Ceremony held at the Community Complex with 16 new arrivals celebrated.

Healthy Babies Healthy Children provides monthly socials, home visits, and workshops. The HBHC program continues to enhance the swap shop with baby and small children’s items available for those who need them in the basement of the Health Centre. The HBHC program also provided an outing to the Toronto Zoo with enrolled families able to attend with their children with a bus and hotel provided. We presently have two experienced partners in parenting on staff with this program.