Questions & Answers
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Short answer: You deserve midwifery care. You deserve to be cared for by an attentive, skilled provider who is all in for you.
• Midwifery care promotes, protects, and supports human, reproductive, and sexual health and rights, and respects ethnic and cultural diversity. It is based on the ethical principles of justice, equity, and respect for human dignity.
• Midwifery care is holistic and continuous in nature, grounded in an understanding of the social, emotional, cultural, spiritual, psychological, and physical experiences of birth givers.
• Midwifery care is emancipatory as it protects and enhances the health and social status of birth givers, and builds self-confidence in their ability to cope with childbirth.
• Midwifery care takes place in partnership with birth givers and families, recognizing the right to self-determination, and is respectful, personalized, continuous, and authoritarian.
• Ethical and competent midwifery care is informed and guided by formal and continuous education, scientific research, and application of evidence.
Adapted from The International Confederation of Midwives Philosophy of Midwifery Care to be gender-conscious. Read more here.
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Study-after-peer-reviewed-study shows that planned birth at home with a trained midwife is as safe (if not safer in some contexts) as birth in a hospital.
One key reason homebirth is safe is because a midwife’s work is attention and risk assessment. We are experts in normal birth; so we know when not-normal happens.
Below are links to some of that research. Just click on the title of the article and go directly to the research:
• Outcomes of planned home births with certified professional midwives: large prospective study in North America. Read here.
• Outcomes of Care for 16,924 Planned Home Births in the United States: The Midwives Alliance of North America Statistics Project, 2004 to 2009. Read here.
•Planned home birth presents little risk where midwifery is well-integrated. Read here.
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Generally, they mean I went to school for a long time to pursue the blessed vocational path of midwifery.
Specifically:
LM—Licensed Midwife by the State of Alabama
CPM—Certified Professional Midwife. This is a national certification that I received after 1500+ hours of client contact—births, prenatal appointments, postpartum visits, etc—and completion of a culmination exam.
MSM—Master of Science in Midwifery. There are many midwifery pathways, but a lover of institutional learning I am. I chose to study at one of the only master’s programs designed for community-based midwives—Bastyr University in Washington State.
MTS—Master of Theological Studies (with an emphasis in Conflict Transformation) from Boston University. See above—I REALLY like the world of academia. I attended theology school because I wanted to ground myself in the spirit of creation and lay a firm foundation for the work of birth.
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No. For Birth Givers is a conscious cash-pay midwifery practice. We believe in sustainable midwifery, meaning a living wage and reasonable workload for the midwife, and health insurance being what it is in this country simply does not equate to sustainability for the midwife. My friend and mentor Washington midwife Louisa Severn wrote extensively and eloquently about this reality here.
Even though we do not accept insurance, we can provide a superbill from For Birth Givers at the completion of care for out-of-network provider reimbursement from your insurance company.
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YES! This midwife is passionate about the sustainability AND accessibility of midwifery care.
So, we happily offer a sliding scale, or pricing brackets, according to the Green Bottle Economic Model. Review here. We also offer payment plans and creative, community-conscious financing. Midwifery care is about individual care; we can figure this out together.
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In short, it is a tool for economic justice, and according to the creators, “The sliding scale represents the idea that financial resources, including income, are not and should not be the only determining factor in whether or not someone can access services/care/etc.”
Reference a picture of the Green Bottle below, and click the following for a thorough explanation:
