WHAT IS A MIDWIFE?...
A midwife is an expert in normal childbirth who assists women giving birth naturally and
safely. She is trained to give the necessary care during pregnancy, labor, birth, and the
postpartum period.
She attends normal deliveries and cares for the newly born infant.
A midwife advises, educates, and supports birthing women.
Midwives have an important task in health education within the family and the community.
WHAT DO MIDWIVES DO?...
Midwives provide a full range of services, beginning with early prenatal care.
Midwives promote good outcomes for mother and infant by encouraging healthy lifestyles
through preventative measures, holistic care, and natural means.
Midwives provide individualized, skilled and loving support, encouragement, education, and
feminine empowerment.
Homebirth midwives allow time at prenatal appointments to build a personalized, warm,
trusting relationship.
Midwives attend the labor and birth, continuously. Midwives carefully monitor the mother
and baby using minimal invasive methods to preserve the calm, relaxed atmosphere.
She provides emergency measures, if necessary, when no other help is available. Midwives
are skilled in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Many midwives carry oxygen to be used if
necessary. They are trained to recognize deviations from normal, are equipped to handle
complications should they appear, and make referrals when necessary.
Midwives follow through with the birth process by doing postpartum care for the mother and
the newborn baby.
WHY A HOMEBIRTH?...
The midwife recognizes that there are physiological, emotional, cultural, spiritual and
sexual aspects to the labor process.
She helps to create and support an atmosphere in which the birth can unfold naturally
in the privacy of the woman's home while under the direction of the birthing woman.
Midwives understand that women are strong, capable human beings who are fully able to birth
their babies safely and lovingly in a calm, familiar environment. Women and babies are
designed to experience birth and to come through the experience safely and unharmed.
In the homebirth setting there are no routine time limits, routine medical interferences,
and technological procedures.
Midwives strive to practice "evidence-based" care throughout the maternity cycle which
eliminates many of the "medical ritualistic" interferences, technology, and procedures
that are currently practiced in the medical community and hospitals.
Each birthing is sacred, unique, and individualized.
Women are able to stay more relaxed in a natural, familiar environment without intruding
strangers or disrupting work schedules and birth attendant changes.
Midwives assist their laboring mothers with various relaxation, meditation and visualization
techniques combined with controlled breathing and massage.
Midwives encourage women to be up and moving during labor. To eat and drink during labor
to keep well nourished and hydrated, thus preventing exhaustion and stress to the mother
and her baby.
Women are encouraged to change positions and try new options, such as water labor and
birthing, if this is what the birthing woman would like to do. This comfortable familiarity,
continuum of care, and birthing options helps to contribute to shorter, easier labors,
increased maternal confidence, and improved outcomes for mother and child.
Homebirth provides far more control and many more choices for a birthing woman as well
as for the well-being of their birthing baby.
Homebirth and midwifery research studies and statistics have documented the reality of safe
outcomes for healthy women and babies.
There is significantly less risk of infection and other complications, which include...
but are not limited to... hemorrhage, cesareans, and injury and trauma to the mother and baby.
When babies are born at home, there are no mistaken identifications between mothers and
their babies or unwanted medical procedures performed.
The important familial bonding between mothers, babies, fathers and siblings contribute
to closer family ties and improved child-parent relationships.
In addition, the midwife may provide well-woman care and family planning services.
Definition of a Midwife...
By Ivy White
midwife (MID=wyf)
- 1. A crazy person who thrives on minimal sleep, minimal monetary compensation, and high stress.
- 2. A magnet for every fringe group, weirdo, sub or counter culture pregnant couple within a one hundred mile radius.
- 3. One who enjoys handling other people's bodily fluids and really gets off on placentas.
- 4. A political animal who carries a lawyer's name and phone number in a birth bag.
- 5. One who has never uttered the word "no" in an entire lifetime.
- 6. A fearless servant and facilitator of natural birth.
- 7. One who has twenty irons in the fire, juggles, blows bubbles, breastfeeds, talks
on the phone and stirs the soup all at the same time.
- 8. One who has never seen a complete movie or eaten a complete meal or taken a vacation.
- 9. A woman who has three phone lines, a pager, a cell phone, an e-mail address, a fax
machine, a post office box, a home address, an informative web site, and a CB radio.
- 10. One whose heart melts at the sight of a newborn of any species.
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