midwife

Yesterday we talked about how the midwifery model of care could be the answer to America's birth problem. Today, we'll look at some solutions. How does a midwife-led healthcare system work? Some of our favorite midwives know exactly how it’s done.

Susana Vega, CNM, MSN sent this blog in to Every Mother Counts. It’s graphic and raw, so be forewarned that while this story is severely realistic, it’s not for the feint of heart. What it also does though is underscore why we feel so strongly about working in Haiti given the needs there.

On Valentine’s Day, our dear friend, midwife Robin Lim, founder of the Bumi Sehat Birth Center in Indonesia performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a newborn. He was premature and the oxygen masks she tried to use didn’t fit properly and wouldn’t deliver the air he desperately needed to his brand new lungs. With only moments to spare before lack of oxygen damaged his brain and stopped his heart, Robin did what any midwife would do. She breathed life into the boy over and over again, until he was able to do the job himself.

Jennie Joseph, CPM is a midwife who’s re-envisioning a model of care for American mothers that’s practical, compassionate and proving successful regardless of whether women are insured or not, can pay or can’t or are socially high risk. To Jennie, those things don’t matter. What matters are the mothers and the babies. That’s why Jennie is one of our dear friends and why we featured her in our film, "No Woman No Cry". Jennie is the midwife (and director of The Birth Place, a community based maternity center located in Florida), who appears as the voice of American reason in our film and the whistle blower who let viewers in on America’s dirty little secret. It’s also why, in honor of National Midwifery week, we wanted to ask Jennie a few questions and shine a spotlight on her vision.