Midwives Share Wisdom – Our Blog
Listen to Your Heart: How to Choose Your Midwife
Choosing your care provider is a big deal decision when you’re pregnant. Heck, just deciding where you want to have your baby may have been a job and a half.
But now you’ve decided you want to have your baby at home!
Or a birth center.
Or maybe you’re pretty sure you want to have your baby in the hospital but you’re still curious about all the great things you’ve heard about homebirth midwives.
Great! Those are all wonderful starting places. But now you’re faced with a new decision- which midwife is the right one for me? read more…
The P’s: Power, Passenger, Passage and the PASSION
Pain… we hear a lot about the use of the word pain as it relates to childbirth. In every person’s mind they have a filing cabinet with definitions of what words mean. If you think about words, some have more than one definition. Lets look at the word pain in other contexts of life.
Other than childbirth, when do people experience pain?…….. When there is an injury or trauma. What does having an injury or trauma want you to do?……. Stop and assess to ensure you don’t hurt yourself further. Usually it leads you toward something or someone like a band-aid, doctor, or chiropractor or ? What do you want them to do for you?…….. Fix it and make it go away!!!! read more…
Tips on Slowing Down for Self Care
“Sometimes you have to step off the worn path, lay down with your eyes up to the blue sky, interlock your fingers behind your head and let the grass grow up around you.” -Leo Christopher
The beginning of pregnancy is so full of ideas and change. A new baby rapidly grows inside and a new mother is alive with racing thoughts. Preparation for this new little being begins early, sometimes in simply making room in one’s heart. Thoughts begin in the mother’s mind almost immediately after seeing those double lines; Excitement after trying for so long? Shock? How will this impact her life? Her job? Her relationship? Her family dynamic? read more…
A ‘Risky Business’
Twenty years ago when I started working in home birth, my father-in-law said to me “I don’t know why you are doing this, your family can’t afford a lawsuit”. At the time I felt insulted and unsupported by his comment. I have since pondered that statement many times throughout my midwifery career (especially when talking with our students) and have come to some conclusions:
1. Life is a risky business and…
2. Worry means you suffer twice.
Hospital Transfer from Planned Homebirth
Every family dreams about the day of their baby’s arrival into the world. Months of attention to nutrition, exercise, relaxation, and prenatal bonding reach their culmination in the birth journey. The birthing mother feels a great force stirring within her and turns inward, surrendering to her body’s magic. Her labor is unique, and there is a wisdom in the rushing waves and the quiet plateaus alike. Those of us honored to support her as she brings her child into the world are humbled, and trust the rhythms of labor. read more…
A Family is Born
Those of us that work birth know that babies are sentient beings, very present, and wise, they often understand way more than we give them credit for. There is a deep connection to these littlest of people, long before they ever “see the light of day.” Babies are sacred. Aware. And family is the first they know of the world. Family is the place they learn how to love, how to have a sense of humor, interact with the world, mannerisms, habits, personality, religion, passion, dislikes…and on and on. All the details and life experiences they will have that will help grow them into who they will be as adults, starts, at home. The roots of the tree grow in the soil of family.
I recently attended a mother whose story demonstrated so perfectly how birth can be a family experience even for first time moms. The birth I am thinking of was nothing short of magical. And I have the honor (and permission) to share…and so I will tell you a story…
The Fourth Trimester
The days, weeks, and months after a baby is born are truly magical. The love that unfolds in that time is unlike any emotion that humans experience at any other point in their lives. Yesterday you were pregnant and today—you are parents. This magical time is not without its fair share of challenges. read more…
Their Story
Ask a family to tell you about the day they had their baby. Sit with them and have a cup of tea and listen to their story unfold. Their story is unique, universal, and their story is encoded in memory in such fine detail, that you will marvel at how they can remember so much of those hours of their lives. Why do families remember their birthing days so exactly? What impact do these stories have on people’s lives? Does it matter? Should we care? Can we do something to create the story so that when we re-tell it a thousand times, it will always make us feel like it was a good story?
Labor & Birth as a Rite of Passage
Beginning in the earliest human civilizations, rites of passage have allowed us to ceremoniously mark significant life changes and clarify our relationships to others in society. Anthropologist Arnold van Gennep identified three sub-categories of the rite of passage; rites of separation, rites of transition or liminality, and rites of incorporation. One of the ways that having a baby can be such a powerful rite of passage is because this experience has the potential to combine all three of these meaningful phases of transformation. If you are pregnant, a new mom, or a mom of any age, you can use this blog as a guide to prepare for your rite of passage, or you can use the prompts to reflect back on your birth experience.
The Cost of Midwifery Services vs. Hospitals and Doctors
Average hospital costs in the Sacramento area are $7,600-$37,000, plus:
- Doctor’s fee of $2,000-$3,500,
- Pediatrician fee,
- Anesthesiologist fee if an epidural is used,
- and supplies used are billed separately.
Insurance often will cover part of these fees and you will have a 10%-50% co-payment with a deductible of $500-$5,000, depending on your plan. If a Cesarean delivery occurs, the cost goes to an average of $10,000-$50,000. C-sections occur an average of 33%-50% of the time in a hospital planned birth compared with 2%-8% in a planned home birth that transfers to a hospital.
For more, read the UC San Francisco article How much does it cost to have a baby in a hospital? (UniversityOfCalifornia.edu).
Sacramento and surrounding area midwifery care averages $4,500-$5,200. This fee covers all the care for mom and baby from beginning through the six week post partum period. Some PPO insurance companies will pay partial coverage for midwifery care and home birth. You can talk to the midwives you interview with about this option.
Ask Questions, Get Answers, Learn Your Options
Make a complimentary consultation appointment today with one or more of our outstanding midwifery practices. Each is unique in personality and style yet all are highly trained and skilled midwives.