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Does the age of your midwife matter to you?

  • I would prefer someone older

    Votes: 17 12.8%
  • Age does not matter

    Votes: 67 50.4%
  • I would choose someone younger if they had experience and I liked them

    Votes: 59 44.4%

Younger Midwife? Opinions please

3K views 45 replies 40 participants last post by  SublimeBirthGirl 
#1 ·
I am completely ready to become a midwife. I did doula training at the Seattle Midwifery School when I was 23 (I was also getting a master's at the time in psychology). I never really perused being a doula because I felt too young, and then became a mother myself and other things began to keep me busy. I have since started a business that supports my son and I and have time to really do whatever I want now, and feel I am ready to pursue a career in midwifery.

I am currently 28 years old. By the time I would begin attending births, I would be 29 or 30. I know that I personally would only want an older woman to delver my baby. I certainly would feel uncomfortable with someone 30 years old attending my birth.

Does anyone have any opinions on this? Are there any younger midwifes on this board, or do you know a younger midwife that has started a successful practice? I just want to be sure this is viable before I spend so much time and money on it.

Thanks for any input you can offer, I really appreciate it!
Stacey
 
#2 ·
nak.
my mw was 26 when she attended my first.

i am 24 and have midwifed about 18 births since 6/2006, when i got my license (florida LM and CPM). ive been attending as "primary under supervision" since i was 21. sometimes i am embarrassed to tell ppl my age, but i think the fact that i have had 2 homebirths myself gives me some "street cred" lol. also i have had extensive training. my clients seem to really like me. . . .

anyway i have worked with senior midwives since i started, which i truly think every new mw should do, regardless of age.

some people really like having older women as a mw, as they like that motherly figure. personally, i really preferred having someone closer to my own age for many reasons. everyone is different and there will be women who click with you, and women who dont.

and dont worry, you will get older eventually!


eta are you equating age with experience? because an older woman does not necessarily have any more experience with birth than a younger woman.
 
#3 ·
Wow, thanks, that is so helpful. I have also had a homebirth, have an MA in counseling psych, and to top it all off am a better-than-average business woman, so I think I really could be good at this and make at least a supplimental income from it. Karma Baby is great, but I have not felt motivated about it for quite some time. It runs itself, so I would have the time to train. What was your training like? I am looking into doing these classes:
http://www.denvermidwife.com/becomin...gamidwife.html
and finding a local midwife to apprentice with.

Is there anything else you think I need to know or be aware of before I start the process? How long did it take you to become a midwife?
 
#4 ·
I started attending births as an apprentice when I was 27. But I have to admit there was some significance to me turning 30 in terms of how I felt as a midwife.

But really - it doesn't matter at all. To some clients it could...others not so much. I don't know if I've ever encountered it as an issue with any clients. If you're a midwife in your heart, age is irrelevant.
 
#5 ·
My midwife is in her mid-thirties and I love that she's young! I felt like she was my companion in the pregnancy, not an authority figure. In fact, she was even pregnant at the same time I was, so it really felt like we were on the same page in many ways. Of course, it was mainly her personality and her competence that made me choose her, but I admit her youthfulness was a plus for me. I know another local midwife who's about my age (I'm about to turn 30), and she's running a very successful and busy practice.

I don't think it will hurt you. And all these older midwives were once younger, you know! I say go for it if it's what you're yearning to do.
 
#6 ·
i look really young! so to me age and "look" of age does not matter! as long as she knows what she is doing and can take it on as well as i liked her......
 
#7 ·
My midwives are younger. I don't know how young - I would guess one is in her 20s and the other in her 30s. I don't have any reservations based on age. I am more concerned about experience and finding a good fit based on birth philosophy than age.

I'm not a birth professional, but this seemed like a question for anyone to answer.
 
#8 ·
Thanks everyone, this is really helpful. I can see how someone might like someone more their age. And while I feel young, 30 really is not that young. The problem is, that the majority of women having babies in Boulder are in their 30's. I was the only twenty-something that was pregnant at the time I was. But, I am sure in outlaying areas there are younger women. Plus, I will have to be doing free and reduced costs births for awhile, which will mean younger couples with less income.
 
#10 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by GrrlyElizabeth View Post
My midwife is in her mid-thirties and I love that she's young!
Wow, I'm a little younger than that - and I look even younger. But I don't think of myself as that young. Maybe I should


I think I am young compared to the general population of midwives (especially CNMs). But I see a lot of what I consider to be young pregnant women (lots of teens - our youngest is 15, many 17-20 year olds), and my guess is they think I'm old


I think younger midwives are great! Like someone else said, though, some people are going to prefer someone younger, and others will prefer someone older. Personality has a lot to do with it, too...

(Boulder is a little different to be sure - my dad was mistaken for my son's father a few times when we lived there - I was definitely a young mom by Boulder standards)
 
#11 ·
As a young apprentice that should be a midwife in a few years, I don't think age matters. I often find that younger midwives have a zeal for life about them that the older midwives don't have and I like it. As an end note, however, I would like to be an old granny midwife someday!
 
#15 ·
I see a group of midwives at a hospital. They vary in age. I don't care the age of the midwives I see. All I care is that they have some experience, they don't try to go against my wishes, and they are competent. Age/looks/beliefs don't matter to me.

On another note, I became a nurse (NOT a midwife) at 22 years old. I had MANY people ask me if I was even old enough to be a nurse. I could tell a lot of people were uncomfortable having me as their nurse because I was young. A lot of people equate age with experience, which is so not true in healthcare. I know 25 year old nurses who have much more experience than 65 year old nurses. Everyone seems to graduate at a different age. I am now 29, and people don't seem to mind as much as when I was younger.
 
#16 ·
I'm 29 in a few weeks and in midwifery school. I used to think pursuing midwifery as a young woman seemed odd...well, for me it just didn't feel right at the time to jump in feet first (the midwifery bug bit me when I was 21) so I became a doula and a CBE first. Then I went to RN school. My thinking back then was that all the training and varied experiences in RN school would 'season' me before I bit the bullet and applied to midwifery school. 8 years and hundreds of births later I finally feel 'old' enough to seriously begin my training.

I think that so much goes into the making of a midwife. Has she had kids before? Has she practiced in varied settings? Does she truly believe in normal birth? Is she a nurse who was exposed to midwifery at work and thought, "that's be cool to catch babies?" And yes, how old she is. Age is one of those factors though that's heavily dependent on a person's experiences. One mw I work with is younger than me but she's a wise, old soul. I would trust her with receiving my babies in a heartbeat if only she did HB.

My advice is to follow your gut. Attending women in birth is not to be taken lightly for sure. It is such a high honor. If you feel in your heart that the time is right than go for it. Best of luck!!
 
#17 ·
the midwife who attended both of our births is the same exact age i am (a few months younger, in fact) and she has been attending births for close to 10 years. her "soul" is old, though, i believe, and her spirit and demeanor are and have always been very maternal, even though she only birthed her very own first child just over a year ago.
 
#18 ·
Hi-

I decided I wanted to be a midwife when I was 18, and in college. I finished my BS I was working on at the time (in midwifery related social history and pre-nursing school classes), and took a year off and worked for Outward Bound, and just read birth books all the time. I knew I would go to midwifery school and I kinda of thought of it like grad school after college. I went right into a three year direct entry midwifery school. I was really stuck on my decision between nurse midwifery school and LM/direct entry midwifery school, since no one had graduated form the schools when I started. They were just two years old, and so new and untested. The whole LM thing was freshly revived in our State, but I decided to walk that path and be a test case for whether I could make direct entry midwifery work in my State. Plus I was way to feminist, and fresh off of reading Witches, Nurses, and Midwives by Barbara Ehrenlich too go to nursing school and put up with the bullshit I heard my waitress coworkers in nursing school talked about . I did not want to take care of gangrened legs, I wanted to see babies born!!!

I started midwifery school on the day before my 22nd birthday and got my license when I was 25. I started working for an older midwife in my first job in a birth center, but she had an injury shortly after I was hired and so I basically did it all my first year, but she was always a phone call away and had the older maternal grandma kind of presence many clients liked. But she was pretty burned out and I had the juice to give, it was a good combo. I left after a year, I think I had done about 60 births in the team practice before I went solo. I started doing homebirths and opened a birth center and hired another midwife two years later to accommodate my busy practice. She was in her 40s and many people related to her in the maternal way, but it was weird because she was really green and had lots less experience than I did in midwifery. Most people presumed she was more seasoned than me because of her age, but that was not so.

There were only older midwives doing homebirth and I offered a more professional, current model of care than they did, in my opinion. I was just at a conference and Venus Marks, a 72 year old midwife from Trinidad, said midwifery changes every ten years....birth is the same, but what women are looking is different every decade. I have been in one decade, and I think this is really true. I came in on the wave of doulas ten years ago, and I was the one in our practice that had trained with Penny Simkin and came with my with the birth ball, all ready to do the hip press, do unwavering labor support, and do hands off waterbirths....I read my clients needs, and could write articles that spoke to what was happening with women in my generation....now its about catching your own baby and elimination communication. Its fun to feel like I can really see what she was talking about, the culture HAS changed around birth. As a new passionate midwife you bring that new research, and being in on the culture of birth to the clients in a different way than someone who has been at it forever.

The older midwives I worked with, and there were three at the time I was a student, did not have kids. So I did not stick out in that way. It felt weird to be 22 and doing prenatals on 35 year olds with 8 kids. But I am not of a culture that has 8 kids so it was more about the culture difference than anything. Your clients are always your main teachers, you learn so much, and in midwifery you are sharing information, not being THE AUTHORITY.

I've been at 250 birth as the "real" midwife/350 including my student births/assists/doula births. Now I have a kid. I had my baby at age 30 after attending 200 births as the midwife, 300 total. I had much more to give when I was a young passionate midwife than I do now. I used my energy then to build a successful business, and now someone else is running it. I sold it. I feel like I have a really strong foundation, and really glad I spent my twenties building what I did. Now I am being with my kid, thinking about having another, and doing things that do not require me to be on call. I know I served women really well. I think I only had a few clients interview that had an issue with my age. There are other midwives for them. You will find you have your own personality and strengths and weaknesses, and will build a practice and following that reflects who you are.

But yes you can absolutely succeed as a "young" midwife. You use all that up all night party energy others burn up dancing at bars being up with women in labor. I was a really driven, stable person and I am glad I got to use that energy to build something real in my community and develop a solid set of professional skills. My friend works in World Trade in Washington DC and had her first baby the same time I did. We both felt we put a decade or so into our careers in our twenties, and now we have kids we don't give to work in the same way we did as childless 20 something yr olds. We are both glad we did what we did.

It was weird to see my friends just partying and being 22 when I was up all night helping babies come out. I lived with my same college roommates when I started midwifery school. Those days were often a clash of cultures and I sometimes felt burdened by the sense of deep REALITY...Like I would come home form a really tough birth and it was weird to be around folks that how ever much I loved them couldn't to grasp what it was I had just been through and touched. I ended up moving home with my parents, getting a dog, and spending most of my down time with my dog in the woods or on the beach!!

After a while most of my friends were midwives, and I got support for that and that burden was lightened and I did not feel so lonely since I had friends that shared an understanding of the intensity of birth, and of how every life changes and takes on a new dimension when you work in birth. I met my husband when I was 25 and a senior student, and he had done rebirthing breathe training in Sweden and knew all about birth, and had seen waterbirth videos, etc...so he was also an easy natural birth buddy. He was my main "birth partner" in my solo practice years and can debrief a birth with the best of them!

I love being the midwife to my contemporaries. I will really miss it when my friends in my age cohort are not giving birth anymore! Now at 32 I actually feel "old sometimes" because I am just not in the culture of the 25 year old moms like I was ....I remember the first time a mom called me Ma'am and MEANT it, I was 25 and she was 16. I have since been with her for all 4 of her births and she is such a great mom, probably only now as old as I was then!
 
#19 ·


Quote:

Originally Posted by Romana9+2 View Post
My midwives are younger. I don't know how young - I would guess one is in her 20s and the other in her 30s. I don't have any reservations based on age. I am more concerned about experience and finding a good fit based on birth philosophy than age.

:

You're a sweetheart, Romana9+2. I'm 35 and Jewel is early 40-something.

:
 
#20 ·
I'm 26 and assisting a midwife... I've long said I'll feel like an adult when I turn 30.
:

I almost went to school when I was 18 to become a CNM... so I guess being 30 or a little more before I'm a CPM is young but not if you're comparing to my original plan.


eta: FWIW, my midwife has children around my age. I didn't realize she was old enough to be my mother at first, and that was irrelevant. The reasons I chose to hire her were based on her knowledge and the connection I felt.
 
#21 ·
I'm going to be 24 soon. I've wanted to be a midwife since I was about 14. I'm hoping to be certified by the time I'm 29 at the latest. For many of the reasons stated above (very eloquently written
I think I can bring a lot to the midwifery world. I'm young, have lots of energy and passion. I personally would hire a midwife for her experience and personality, not age. Although, my mother told me that no one would hire me since I was young....
Best wishes for your studies. The country definitely needs more midwives!
 
#22 ·
That's a great question. As much as I would love to say that age doesn't matter, if I liked the person....I prefer the older midwives! At my first homebirth, I had two midwives who were in their mid 30's and a doula who was your age. Nicole, the doula was certified in another state as a MW, but was working on her cert in CA, so was practicing as a doula and attended DD's birth to gain hours. She was AWESOME. And that birth would have been so much more difficult than it was if she hadn't been there.

However, a couple of years later, I read "The Red Tent" and went "wow...I want an older, wiser midwife for my next births!" So, that's what we looked for and had at the birth of our second. My whole second pregnancy was different. My MW was calm, gentle, not in a hurry, and had attended SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, etc. many births, in so many different countries and over the years has gone through so many different legal issues...She'd experienced just about everything their was to experience-more than once! And, the woman that assisted was the same age, interestingly enough. SO...that worked out well.

God willing, we will have another, and I think that I'll stick with the "older and wiser"!

I hope that helps, and good luck with your studies!
 
#23 ·
Frankly, it can be so hard to find the right CP that I don't want to give too much weight to age!

Ideally I like my HCPs to be youngish but not wet behind the ears. I might be nervous with a midwife who was straight out of school/training, but as long as they have some experience, I'm OK. I've found that while older HCPs can have more experience they can also have outmoded ideas and be set in their ways (not necessarily of course but it's more likely than with a younger one).
 
#24 ·
Oooh, I loved "the red tent" too. I found mentors like that in midwifery school, and loved being a midwife because I did find women who educated me about the blood mysteries of body in sacred way.

I also think we have lost that wisdom and are reclaiming it, and it is often the young women who are coming in and grabbing hold of that sacred wisdom, so sometimes THEY are the ones that have that to offer...I would love it if we lived in a culture of uninterrupted lines of sacred wisdom, and that I had access to that knowledge from my own elders. But its just not so. My own grandma is a smoker, drinker, and does not have that "Grandmother Wisdom Tradition" to offer me! Many of the young women I know came in to this life with a better hold on those ideas than my own elders.

But you are in California and maybe have a broader population of women who hold that thread of knowledge in away those of us in the South do not....My mentors actually come from California, and the consciousness work there was different and so you may have better, "authentic" elders to draw form than we do!
 
#25 ·
I started attending birth when I was 19 while going to nursing school, and when I was 21 started home births with a midwife. Iam 24 with a new and growing hb practice, I never thought it would be this soon, but it has changed my life. The pros are energy, had two long nights last week, but seeing that baby born you would never known an hour ago you were falling asleep
The last birth my mom was 41, she said seeing my energy gave her energy and peace. She said age never bothered her.

Its all about the mother and her comfort what she want. I wouldnt be ofended if a mother wanted someone older for a mw. She needs to feel safe in her birthing space and if she dosnt feel safe then the situation is not safe. So woman need to have choices because what we are all striving for is gental woman centered birth.
 
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