I was seeing a great homebirth midwife where I was before, she trained the one who attended DS2's birth. I just moved to a new area and spent a couple months beforehand tracking down the local midwife who does out of hospital births (hard to find! it's a hostile state to midwifery and she's v. traditional, no internet presence). I met with her today. She and her assistant don't attend births at homes, she has you come to her place and has a couple rooms set up for births, and has a big whirlpool tub there for labor and/or birth. It's very home-like and she definitely practices midwifery model of care, and I wouldn't be stuck there too long like at the hospital, so I don't mind terribly. She's set up for emergencies (herbs, oxygen, Pit, IV) and can help transfer, but generally finds hands off attending and some herbs do the trick for most...her transfer rate during labor or after birth is only like 5% and it only really happens with serious emergencies or true failure to progress, not exhaustion or pain meds. She does strongly believe in a 5 week herbal treatment before birth, which I'd only be willing to take if it were gentle, not a lot of oxcytocics like cohoshes. She has a lot of experience, well over a thousand births no doubt. Her cost is half what most charge, she sees lower income farming folks mostly and invites them to decide what to pay her.
How do you like your current care provider? Anybody else had to switch in the middle of pregnancy?
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