Inlet Community Birth Program

The whole team at Inlet was wonderful during our prenatal appointments, birth, and postpartum visits! All the midwives were kind and supportive. At every appointment, I was able to have all my questions answered and was provided with all the information needed to make decisions around our daughter's birth. I met with different midwives during our prenatal care and every single one of them made me feel cared for, supported, and that my questions and concerns were valid and worth addressing. We ended up being diverted to another hospital for labour and delivery, but the Inlet team made sure we were well informed and that the transition was smooth. They also kept in close contact during our stay in the hospital and made sure we were supported. Overall, we had a great experience with Inlet and wouldn't hesitate to recommend them!

I cannot begin to describe how much these ladies mean to me. I just had my first baby 2 months ago and the treatment I recieved at this office was second to none. From start to finish everyone was kind and caring. Even through as difficult a time as it has been with COVID-19, the care at this office did not falter for a second. They helped us feel safe, and informed in all our decision making and they helped create a feeling of community with other new parents. If/when we have our next child I will definitely be coming back.

Even though some of the midwives here are great, there are too many midwives and they do not assign specific carers for each patient, so the care here is like playing the lottery. While the midwives may be confident that they provide consistent care, our experience (and even the advice provided) has varied widely depending on who was seeing us on a given day, and the bedside manner of each care provider runs the gamut from sympathetic to heartless (for example, one ejected my mother in law from our bedroom and told my wife she should "accept being unable to breastfeed" during the same home visit!). Their obsession with a children's weight gain chart has also put undue stress on my wife and our family: between the overwhelming directions on pumping, formula, syringes, and breastfeeding given by each person who saw us, it was very difficult to weed out the signal from the noise. Ultimately, we have ended up much happier following our intuitions instead, and our child is better for it. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, their inflexibility regarding only practicing deliveries at Royal Columbian Hospital has cost us dearly: my wife and I were basically left out in the cold and told to drive to Maple Ridge in the dead of winter to give birth in a remote hospital without any midwife support. Because none of their staff were present during the birth, several of these midwives have asked my wife to recount her incredibly traumatic birth experience again and again, preventing us from properly moving on.

PART 1: My only star given to this team is solely for a few (few) truly empathetic and caring midwifes. I'm telling my experience 1 year later, because it was traumatic. I have no doubt that what we experienced was obstetric violence. It started with the bizarre rudeness that throughout my prenatal care, my husband was prevented from participating in the consultations, even though they were aware of my difficulty with the language. The justification was because of COVID, which honestly doesn't make any sense since we live together. We knew of other clinics around the greater vancouver that allowed the father's presence. Also when the genetic test result came out I received a call that was too direct, too impolite and not very explanatory at 5:30pm on a Friday, saying that our test was "positive", we didn't know what that meant and I I had an intense crisis of crying and tension, until on my own I went to research and seek help from known doctors. After making a formal complaint about the format to deliver this type of news, I received a call where I was convinced that the problem was my English (by the way they never admit any mistakes, it's always us). I had been informed that one of the midwifes who attended me during prenatal care would be the one who would accompany me on the day of delivery. It was not. All those who attended me at birth (responsible midwife and assistant), postpartum and at my house, I had never seen them in my life. It looks like the team has about 30 professionals, you won't even see 10 of them during prenatal care. I really hoped that one of them that I liked a lot would see me, she saw me 3 times during routine appointments. Illusion. Well, the labor days were awful. I spent 60 hours in labor, the plan was a home birth, until in the end it was necessary for me to be taken to the hospital and it ended up in a cesarean. If during all this time midwife was with me for more than 2 hours, it was a lot! She came to my house to measure my dilation after reaching the number of contractions per duration, she had been in labor for more than 18 hours without disturbing her, when she arrived very agitated, she barely spoke to me, she looked at me, she looked very hurry and annoyed when she saw me in the bathtub. She told me to leave and she talked really, really fast, she was really very anxious and agitated. I asked not to know the numbers because I didn't want it to shake me mentally if I was still at the beginning. She was annoyed with my request and said everything, without any care, she just didn't say the numbers, which she didn't need, it was clear that it was in the beginning. I wrote a detailed birth plan 2 months before delivery. I took the queries and also sent via email. I was assured that it would be in my chart and on the day whoever saw me, both the staff and the hospital would have the plan in mind. I DOUBT that it was actually read, nothing about it was respected. PS: I continued my story through my husband's google, Thiago. I've reached the character limit.

My initial intake meeting went well and I felt like this would be a great midwifery option to handle my pregnancy. Unfortunately I had some pretty devastating news come my way midway through pregnancy and had to transfer to a high risk OB. however, the follow ups I had from one of their midwives was quite rude, unkind and not very empathetic. It always boggles my mind when healthcare workers seem to lack basic empathy for patients especially when they know there is a stressful topic they are facing. For that reason I would never recommend anyone there.

I wish I could give these midwives a million stars! I felt so supported and educated throughout my entire pregnancy, birth, and newborn phase. Every single midwife I interacted with was phenomenal. I felt well-informed and safe as a first time mom. I hope I get to have all my future babies with this team too, they are the absolute best!

I had a really wonderful and affirming birthing experience thanks to Inlet. I switched quite late in my pregnancy because I felt like I wasn't being heard at a non-midwifery practice. Turns out I was right, because I went into labor seven weeks early -- likely due to an undetected infection. The midwives and receptionist at Inlet were all wonderful, warm, and reassuring every step of the way. The midwife who helped me birth, Tamara, arrived at the perfect moment and was a huge source of reassurance and empowerment when I needed it most. Plus it's the care after birth that really sets midwifery practices like Inlet apart. I had regular check-ins while I was in the NICU and at-home check-ups even with Covid. I would highly recommend this practice to anyone looking for a positive birthing experience.

I rarely write reviews, but I feel like I need to share my experience here. I had heard nothing but amazing things about Inlet and was quite excited to experience my first pregnancy and birth with them. My pregnancy ended up having a lot of various issues, nothing crazy but enough that it was a difficult pregnant for the entire nine months. I found that I had to do a lot of research and advocating for myself, which was disappointing as the whole reason I chose to go with a midwife was to get the extra support you generally wouldn’t get with an OB. Often when I would call in for help, I was get redirected to call my family doctor as they, as midwives, couldn’t help. I didn’t love the whole set up where you saw many different midwives and couldn’t guarantee who would be with you. There were a few midwives that were great (Candace was awesome!) but there were a few who made me feel like I was overreacting a lot and were dismissive of my shared symptoms. My birth went well in the end - I was a planned c-section and aware of having an OB delivering beforehand. I had mixed feelings about my Inlet through the entire pregnancy, but what completely tipped my review into the negative was when they never put my daughter’s name up for their monthly births sign in the office, and couldn’t even remember her name. At that point it just felt so impersonal and left me feeling quite sad and disappointed of my experience with them.