“Ha Estado su nino activo?” I ask the Mexican mother as I adjust a blood pressure cuff around her upper arm. I look to see if she understands me. I check a box that her kick counts are good when she answers “Si,” or “A veces.” I wish I could communicate what I mean more specifically, but I’m not able to do that yet.

 Read more…. The Modern Hen Party

We hope that this new department, which replaces “Journal Abstracts,” will assist you in offering the best midwifery care to the women you serve.

 Read more…. Evidence-Based Midwifery

I have always had a deep fascination for childbirth. When my mother was pregnant with my second-to-last sibling, I attended her midwifery appointments and read all of her birth books. She taped together the pages that she deemed inappropriate for an eight-year-old, which, naturally, I untaped, read, and retaped carefully. None of my other siblings saw what I did in childbirth and pregnancy, but I was captivated by it.

 Read more…. It Is a Privilege to Simply Be Here

In 2009, when cleaning out old files, I found a handwritten account of the following events that had been carefully saved and totally forgotten for 25 years. I had not forgotten the story, but I had lost track of the fact that I had written about it shortly after it happened. I was living in a very rural isolated area of Costa Rica in the community of Monteverde, a place that I had lived in several times during my young adulthood, first when I was just 18 years old. My experience there had strongly informed and inspired my desire to become a midwife. At the time of this birth I was waiting to hear if I would be admitted to the Frontier Nursing Service Midwifery class of 1985. I was a registered nurse with lots of experience working with pregnant women but I had never been the primary attendant at a homebirth.

 Read more…. The Birth of a Baby and a Midwife in the San Luis Valley