When to call

Please ring us if you have any concerns!

With contractions

• • If it is your first baby, you need to contact us once you have had regular contractions for about an hour (and are about three to five minutes apart, and each lasts about one minute).
    If you feel that you need midwife assistance before then, because you feel the contractions are very intense, you are becoming anxious or are feeling the urge to push, please call us too!
  • If this is not your first baby, then please call when you are having painful and regular contractions. You will recognize this from previous labour. The same applies in this situation; should you feel the need for us to come out sooner, just give us a ring. It is possible we decide to make alternative arrangements, depending how your previous childbirths have progressed.

With loss of amniotic fluid:

(Try to collect some amniotic fluid in a glass or on a white sanitary towel)

If your waters (the membranes) break, please check the colour of the amniotic water and try to save some of it in a glass or on a white towel. It should be clear, white or pink. If it is brown/yellow/green: please call us immediately. If the waters break during the night and it is clear/white/pink: you can go to sleep and call us in the morning. Only when the head of the baby WAS NOT ingaged in the pelvis, you also have to call us right away. The midwife will have told you to do so if the head of the baby was not engaged.
Should your waters break during the day, call us right away, we will make arrangements to visit you later that day.

With bright red bleeding (more than a full sanitary towel)

The attending midwife is always available for deliveries, concerns and urgent questions. For births and other urgent matters and to arrange a visit from the midwife following a hospital birth, please call: (06) 49 777 349 It is preferred you do not call from an ‘unknown’ number, so that we can ring you back should we not be immediately available.

If there is no answer or the line is busy for a long time (>15min), call the doctors service on: 0900 – 1515. We are then paged telling us to call you back. DO NOT send text messages to this number!