The prenatal care schedule follows the standard obstetrical care schedule, with significantly more time spent with our clients per-visit than in the OB model.

You’ll be seen:

• Once a month until 28 weeks

• Twice a month until 36 weeks

• Weekly until you give birth

Each prenatal appointment offers:

• Parental vitals (blood pressure, pulse, urine, weight (optional), screening for signs of pre-eclampsia and other disorders)

• Fetal heart beat monitoring as well as positional and fluid palpation

• Routine labs such as OB panel, genetic screening, gestational diabetes, STIs, and more

• Nutritional and lifestyle guidance

• Planning for the birth and postpartum

• Addressing fears, discomforts, and other concerns

• Referral for ultrasound and follow-up

Midwives are on call 24/7 for any clinically urgent or birth-related calls, throughout your care. Your midwife will also coordinate care when circumstances arise that require higher licensing.

The midwife way is to keep an eye on birth and intervene only as needed, always giving a “tincture of time.”

Leah sticks to the evidence-based practice standards put in place by our state licenses, our national certifications, and our communities. This includes intermittent fetal monitoring and laboring person vitals and emotional health check-ins. Cervical exams are offered as clinically indicated and always with consent.

Leah is also licensed to provide tools such as sutures and Lidocaine, urinary catheters, IV fluids, medications to stop bleeding, oxygen, and resuscitation equipment, for times when we may need to help out.

All support staff and medical equipment that are offered at the birth center are also brought to your home birth. Home birthers will need to purchase a small kit of supplies for their birth.

Waterbirth is an option for low-risk clients. If you are planning a home birth, we can guide you towards where to rent or purchase a birthing tub. You are not required to give birth in the water in order to receive the benefits of water for labor. Water birth is shown to be as safe as “land birth” for babies and to improve medical outcomes for the laboring person.

Leah believes that the support given during this tender time is integral to the ongoing success of every new family. Midwives remain on call for you for the duration of your care.

Each postpartum visit includes parental health assessment and mental health screening as well as well-baby check and nursing assessment.

You’ll receive routine breastfeeding/chestfeeding support from your midwife at each postpartum visit, with referrals available for an IBCLC’s support for advanced challenges.

Where appropriate and indicated, aromatherapy can be effective for relaxation, facilitating labor progress, helping with mental focus and invoking the sacred space

Herbs and homeopathy can calm nerves, heal tissues, and help reduce blood loss.

LMs also licensed to provide basic reproductive health exams outside of pregnancy.

• Cervical cancer screening

• Sexually transmitted infection screening

• Well-person bloodwork such as CBC, thyroid, etc.

• Breast/Chest exams

• Herbal and nutritional support