Category Archive

midwife

What you can do to help get midwives licensed in Alabama even if you don’t live anywhere near it

The Alabama Birth Coalition is an organization that’s working hard to change this. It’s completely volunteer-based, totally grassroots-driven, and one of the coolest collective of people I’ve ever had the pleasure of being around. I recently interviewed Hannah Ellis about her work with the Alabama Birth Coalition and what you can do to help — even if you don’t live anywhere near Alabama.

If I have my baby at home, what will my neighbors think of the noise?

Ideally, I would like a midwife-assisted home birth, but we live in a condo unit where the sound carries through the ceiling. What steps should I take to ensure we are good neighbors should we decide to go through with this?

Why we switched to a midwife 32 weeks into our pregnancy

My decision to switch to this midwife group turned out to be so essential to the beautiful success of my birth not because I got the unmedicalized birth, but because I ended up with a medicalized one.

The midwife-assisted “home birth” of Georgia June (in photos)

Natasha and Paul live in Alabama — a state that doesn’t allow licensed midwives to be present at home births. To get around this, they went to Tennessee to give birth to their baby, and here are the photos from the day.

A midwife’s totally fabulous high-tech birth

Can a midwife who have a REALLY AWESOME hospital birth? You betcha!

Why I almost decided to have an unassisted birth

I currently live in North Carolina — where traditional midwifery is illegal. At 37, I’m also “of advanced maternal age.” This means, no one wants to deliver my baby.

How can I stay positive about our upcoming birth?

Reader Morgan sent our resident midwife (and Ariel’s mom!) Therese Charvet a question about staying positive about the upcoming birth of her second child. Therese offers advice here!

A sunset baby brings in a new beginning

Just when you think Offbeat Mama’s birth stories archive can’t get any more beautiful, something like Niko’s birth comes along and knocks you off your feet.