The midwives in our practice want the birth of your child to be a life-changing, empowering, and beautiful experience for the entire family. Each child is a gift and deserves to be born into a safe, loving environment. We consider childbirth to be a sacred and profound life event and it is our great honor to be a part of your journey.
As your midwives our services are focused on individualized and compassionate care. A relationship with clients is built over the course of prenatal care based on mutual trust and ensuring you feel informed and in charge. The best outcome is achieved when you feel educated and can make decisions regarding your care in collaboration with your birth team.
Our role as your midwives is to encourage you in your own ways of moving through pregnancy, birth and mothering. Together with our clients we carefully monitor the progress of pregnancy and labor, and recommend appropriate management should complications arise. The key elements of this education, monitoring and decision making are Evidence Based Practice and Informed Consent.
Evidence-Based Practice refers to a thoughtful integration of the best and most recent evidence combined with clinical expertise. As such it enables Midwives and their clients to address health care questions with an evaluative and qualitative approach. Evidence based decisions flow from a process that includes assessment of current and past research, clinical guidelines and other information resources in order to determine the best course of care.
Typically, Informed Consent refers to the rights of health care consumers to be informed with the best possible evidence. This includes risks and benefits about testing or treatment options so that they can then make a shared decision with their provider among those options.
Call Bay Area Homebirth at (415) 578-8598 or email us at bayareahomebirth@gmail.com to get in touch.
Holistic Care
Western and holistic practices are combined to offer low risk women a safe and satisfying alternative to giving birth in a hospital. In our practice we regularly work with many different providers including Chiropractors, Herbalists, Acupuncturists, traditional Obstetricians, Naturopaths and many more. We believe a healthy pregnancy and birth are best achieved with attention on nutrition, movement and emotional health.
For this reason we take great care to discuss our clients daily diet, family dynamics, access to joyful exercise that invigorates her and resources if there is any barrier to access and services.
Collaborating with other holistic health professionals allows us to help clients find the best way to care for their body and baby. We balance using “natural” remedies and intervening with western medicine when indicated.
Birthing at Home
Home birth offers women a great sense of empowerment in all aspects of care. Surrounded by supportive people in a comfortable family environment, a woman may feel remarkably less inhibited in expressing her natural and individual responses to labor.
In addition, when labor and birth occurs at home, there is less interruption of family routine. Many partners choose an active role in the birth of their child and find that the environment of home birth gives them the freedom to be as involved as they’d like.
Laboring women can, according to their own values, choose to involve their other children in the birth experience as well. We offer suggestions for how to prepare and support older siblings at your home birth.
Breast feeding and family bonding are allowed to unfold uninterrupted in the most natural way. The first hour after birth is kept as peaceful as possible as your midwives respectfully keep a watchful eye but allow for privacy as you greet your baby. Woman are free to move from room to room, position to position, often spending time outside in the fresh air or in the quiet peace of their own bedroom.
Many clients chose to labor in water as this offers an alternative to drugs for pain relief. As the laboring mother and family you are always in charge. If and when we are concerned and or have suggestions we will discuss them with clarity and respect. Midwives expect the process of labor and birth to unfold smoothly, but are also educated in prevention and treatment of complications. We are always vigilant but also non-interfereing. Statistically, fewer complications occur in the home.
Call Bay Area Homebirth at (415) 578-8598 or email us at bayareahomebirth@gmail.com to get in touch.