How to Pick a Midwife

Choosing a midwife is one of the most important decisions you’ll make. The midwife you select will be your reproductive health partner, working with you to make healthy lifestyle choices, honor annual wellness visits, and weather the journey from the fertile years to the postmenopausal years.

If you get pregnant and choose to start a family, your midwife is your champion, doing all they can to facilitate you and your baby through a healthy, full-term pregnancy, labor, and delivery.

What to Look for In a Midwife

While midwives are best known for their pregnancy, labor, and postpartum care, they actually serve women’s wellness needs from the teenage years and beyond. Many of our patients use midwives exclusively, only relying on gynecologists or obstetricians if there’s a medical complication, risk factor, or treatment (surgical or otherwise) that is beyond the scope of midwifery care.

So, if you’re looking for an OB/GYN, you might also expand your sights to include midwives, as they may be your ideal fit.

Identify their credentials

You’ll first want to verify the midwife’s licensing, education, and experience. Midwifery certifications and licensure vary in scope, depth, and length of education/training. Here they are in order of time spent in programs (from least to most):

• Lay Midwife: Lay midwives are typically self-educated and work under the supervision (hopefully) of a more qualified midwife. You’d never opt to use a lay midwife as they lack the training/experience required to provide solid, full-spectrum midwifery and postpartum care.
• Certified Professional Midwife (CPM): These midwives have undergone education and training and have the first level of available certification. They have studied for at least two years and attended more than 55 births.
• Certified Midwife (CM): Certified midwives are the most highly educated, trained, and experienced midwives in the non-nurse category. They have a bachelor’s or master’s degree from an accredited university and meet all requirements set by the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) Core Competencies for Basic Midwifery Education.
• Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM): Certified nurse midwives are in a league of their own because, in addition to completing their Registered Nurse licensure, they’ve also continued and expanded their education in a midwifery specialty program.

Choose a CNM working for an OB/GYN or Birthing Center

We recommend looking for a certified nurse midwife employed by an OB/GYN or birthing center. This gives you the best of both worlds – all of the benefits of a midwife and midwife-assisted birth with immediate access to physicians and surgeons if needed.

Most patients tell us that working with our midwives provided the peace of mind they needed to feel wholly taken care of naturally while knowing emergency care was just a call away if they needed it or changed their mind about comfort care.

Meet the Midwives at Northwest Women’s Clinic

Are you interested in choosing a midwife to oversee your reproductive and pregnancy care? Schedule an appointment with the certified nurse midwives at Northwest Women’s Clinic. They’ve delivered thousands of healthy babies to delighted mothers and would love to do the same for you.