Community Birth Twin Cities now offers primary midwifery care for families planning hospital births!
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Prenatal Care
Families planning to birth in the hospital still benefit greatly from the community model of midwifery care. In this model, we are able to offer a more individualized approach to your care focused on whole-being wellness, education about pregnancy wellness and birth preparation, answering all of your questions, and creating a collaborative relationship where you are able to be the primary decision maker about your care.
We offer hour-long prenatal visits monthly until you’re 28 weeks, every other week until you’re 36 weeks, then weekly until you give birth. We offer all standard labs, testing, and ultrasounds, and work with an informed choice process where you are the decision maker about you and your baby’s care.
We collaborate with midwife groups at most Twin Cities hospitals to offer a seamless continuity of care process for our families choosing to birth in the hospital. Most of the time, families will see us for their all of their routine prenatal care and have 1-2 visits with their in-hospital midwifery team to establish care and prepare for the birth. We handle all the records exchanges and communication between providers, and once your baby is born, receive you back for 6 weeks of postpartum and newborn care.
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Planned Hospital Birth
As your birth approaches, we will work with you on birth planning, understanding and working through hospital policy, reviewing the choices and options available to you during labor, and offering education on supporting physiological birth. We will check in with you at each visit to address any fears or anxieties you have about your birthing time, and offer affirmation and encouragement to ensure you feel confident and ready on your birthing day.
We’ll work closely with your hospital birth providers in the last few weeks of pregnancy to ensure they have all of your prenatal care records and records of any labs or ultrasounds you’ve done with us. We have well-established, collaborative relationships with midwives experienced in supporting families wanting a more physiological approach to birth and more autonomy over their birthing space and experience, and feel deeply confident in their commitment to supporting our client’s hospital birth experience.
Most families stay in the hospital for about 24 hours after baby is born. During that time, the hospital will perform any newborn screens you’ve consented to, and handle the filing of your baby’s birth certificate. When you are ready to go home, the hospital will discharge you back to our care for your postpartum.
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Postpartum & Newborn Care
Once discharged home, we will see you on week 1, week 2, and week 6 for routine postpartum and newborn care. We offer full postpartum and newborn care during this time. Typically, we will discharge your baby to your pediatrician after our final 6 week postpartum.
We are here for the entire family during your postpartum time, checking in on how everyone is adjusting, your physical healing and emotional wellness, ensuring you have the support that you need, and addressing any questions or concerns you may have.
At your final postpartum visit, we will check in on any last needs you have such as family planning, paps, or pelvic floor PT. We work with many community partners to ensure you are well supported as your care course with us ends.
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Doula Support & Midwifery Care
As licensed midwives, we do not have hospital privileges and are unable to catch babies for families planning hospital births. Whether you’re planning a home birth or a hospital birth, we strongly recommend that families hire a doula to attend them during their labor and birth if able. Doulas improve outcomes drastically and are integrated beautifully into your birth team!
We have relationships with doulas across the Twin Cities and are happy to offer referrals and recommendations to clients as needed. We also are able to refer clients to accessible resources for doulas organizations that may be able to provide doulas for families with financial barriers.
Why choose midwifery care if I am planning to birth in the hospital?
A more personalized approach to healthcare
Midwifery care offers a slower, more personalized approach to pregnancy care. You see one of your two midwives at every visit, giving you the opportunity to build a strong, trusting relationship together. We truly get to know you and how you need to be supported as an individual. That personal knowledge of who you are, your values, your needs, your family - makes a huge difference in your experience, your personal wellbeing during and after pregnancy, as well as positively impacts pregnancy and birth outcomes.
Wellness as a whole being
We focus on your wellness and health as a whole person - not simply the health of your pregnancy. We get to know how you’re feeling physically, mentally, and emotionally; if you have adequate support, what stressors are impacting your life and wellbeing, what values add to your views and practices around your health and pregnancy, how your lived experience shapes your life and health. This approach not only improves outcomes for pregnant people and babies, but significantly improves emotional and mental wellness as you welcome your baby into the world.
A holistic approach
We work from the foundation that pregnancy is a normal life event, not a pathology. We focus on holistic approaches to wellness and avoiding complications, such as stress reduction, increasing support and resources, pregnancy education, herbal and nutritional wisdom, and accessible wellness services. When people have access to the right information, are well supported, and are empowered to be active participants in their health, pregnancies, and births - outcomes are better and families are stronger.
Informed Consent
Midwifery care doesn’t function on power dynamics. No one is more qualified to make decisions about your body, your baby, and your health than you are. We focus on informed consent, parent-led decision making, and collaboration. We blend evidence and ancient midwifery wisdom to give you the informaion you need to make decisions about your health.
We believe that everyone should feel empowered to make their own decisions about their bodies and their babies, and that everyone should always have full autonomy over there own bodies. We are passionate about providing the information you need to choose when it comes to every test or procedure, and support your decisions wholeheartedly.
Birth preparedness
As midwives, we believe that the spiritual and emotional aspects of labor are just as important as the physical. We want you to walk into your birthing journey feeling confident, ready, and at peace. We work with you throughout your pregnancy to support you in preparing for your birth - discussing birth choices, discussing fears and anxieties, birth planning, and affirming your ability to birth your baby. We know that birth works best when you are able to trust your body and your baby, and we work to affirm that trust throughout your care.
Postpartum
Postpartum is the hidden gem of midwifery care! In the modern healthcare system, you are seen once - six weeks after you are discharged from the hospital, and unfortunately, that large gap in care is where many people slip through the cracks. We see our families 3-4 times in the postpartum, communicate with you frequently in between visits, and remain on-call for you through the entire six weeks to ensure that you have the care and support you need to transition to parenthood and heal after birth.
In addition to medical care for you and baby, we focus on your mental and emotional wellness, processing your birth story, healing your body hostically, feeding and lactation, your family’s transition to having a new family member, and bonding with your baby. We can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard how impactful midwifery-based postpartum care was for the families we’ve worked with, and we agree wholeheartedly that having plenty of postpartum care is a game-changer for parents and babies.
Safe space
We are extensively trained in providing trauma-informed care for BIPOC, QTPOC, all family structures, disabled people, neurodiverse people, people with all body sizes, survivors of sexual and/or domestic abuse, and culturally-affirming care for families from all backgrounds. Not only do we hold many of these identities ourselves, but our work is and always will be committed to creating safe spaces for marginalized communities. Especially in the context of reproductive care - having access to trauma informed providers and dedicated safe spaces makes a huge difference for families.
Culturally-affirming care
As many people know, outcomes for BIPOC people - especially Black and Indigenous people - are drastically worse in our modern care systems. Having access to a BIPOC midwife in the community setting has continuously been shown to improve outcomes for BIPOC families in virutally every meric - from maternal mortality to greatly reducing medical and birth trauma. Because the care you receive in your pregnancy and postpartum have a significant impact on your birth outcomes, receiving care with a Black midwife is deeply beneficial even if you aren’t planning to birth at home.
