QUESTIONS & ANSWERS:
MIDWIFE

 What is a midwife? 
 A midwife is a trained professional with special expertise in supporting women to maintain a healthy pregnancy birth, offering expert individualized care, education, counseling and support to a woman and her newborn throughout the childbearing cycle.

A midwife works with each woman and her family to identify their unique physical, social and emotional needs. When the care required is outside the midwife's scope of practice or expertise, the woman is referred to other health care providers for additional consultation or care.

The Midwives Alliance of North America, the North American Registry of Midwives, the Midwifery Education Accreditation Council and Citizens for Midwifery agreed on a short definition of what "midwifery care" means. However, just because a person is a midwife does not guarantee that they provide this kind of care; consumers looking for a midwife should ask questions to determine if a prospective caregiver will be able to provide the kind of care they seek.

What is the Midwives Model of Care?
The Midwives Model of Care is based on the fact that pregnancy and birth are normal life processes.

The Midwives Model of Care includes:

• Monitoring the physical, psychological, and social well-being of the mother throughout the childbearing cycle

• Providing the mother with individualized education, counseling, and prenatal care, continuous hands-on assistance during labor and delivery, and postpartum support

• Minimizing technological interventions

• Identifying and referring women who require obstetrical attention

• The application of this woman-centered model of care has been proven to reduce the incidence of birth injury, trauma, and cesarean section.

How does a midwife differ from an obstetrician-gynecologist?

Midwives are trained to focus on understanding and protecting what is normal and natural in pregnancy and birth, while obstetricians are trained to focus on understanding and looking for complications. Obstetricians’ and gynecologists’ training and skills are best utilized on women with high-risk pregnancies, as opposed to the majority of women with normal pregnancies. A midwife recognizes pregnancy and birth as normal processes and believes that the education and empowerment of pregnant women are just as important as good prenatal care. While prenatal visits with an obstetrician typically last approximately eight to nine minutes, a midwife will spend 30 minutes to an hour with each patient.

I have a Midwife, do I need a doula?
A doula can be helpful no matter where you choose to birth or who your caregiver is.  Not all women need a doula at their birth, but most will find them of great value for themselves and their partner at their birth.  In fact, at Orero Birth we find the presence of doulas at births to be so beneficial, that all of our birth assistants and our midwife are trained doulas.

If I use a midwife do I still need to see an OB? 
No, the midwife is able to provide or order all prenatal care including lab work and Ultrasounds as needed. When a healthy pregnant woman is under the care of a midwife she does not need to see any other care providers.

What is a Midwife Pregnancy Coach? A Midwife Pregnancy Coach is something you won’t find everywhere — it’s a midwife who takes her clinical expertise out of the birth room and into a coaching and education setting. I’m Liz, and in addition to providing in-home midwifery care here in Denver, I also work with pregnant women all over the country as a pregnancy coach through my brand, Loving My Pregnancy.

As a midwife with nearly 30 years of combined experience, I’ve sat with hundreds of women through pregnancy, labor, and birth. I know what questions women wish they’d asked sooner. I know what fear looks like and what it costs a woman in her birth experience. Pregnancy coaching is where I take everything I know from the clinical side and use it to help you become truly informed, prepared, and confident — not just a passenger in your own pregnancy.

How is pregnancy coaching different from the midwifery care you offer? My midwifery practice is hands-on, in-person care for women in the Denver area — prenatal visits, labor support, home birth, VBAC, all of it. My coaching work is different in two important ways.

First, it’s available to any woman, anywhere. You don’t have to be in Denver to work with me in a coaching capacity. Second, coaching goes deeper on the education and preparation side than prenatal appointments alone allow. Even with hour-long visits — which is already far more than most women get with an OB — there is only so much ground we can cover. Coaching creates dedicated space to work through fears, understand your options, build a real birth plan, and step into your pregnancy feeling empowered rather than anxious.

Many of my coaching clients aren’t local to me at all. They found me because they wanted guidance from someone with genuine clinical expertise, not just a wellness perspective.

To learn more about my coaching work, visit Loving My Pregnancy

Do you take insurance?
No, we do not currently take insurance. However, if requested, we do provide an itemized invoice at the end of your care that you can submit to your insurance to try to receive reimbursement for part or all of our fees. We also keep our fees low so that the average family will pay us less not using their insurance than they will using their insurance for a hospital birth.

Do you offer payment plans?
Yes we do offer payment plans, as well as discounts for military, first responders, and teachers, and for early pay off.

Money is really tight, do you offer anything to help if we can’t come up with the money?
Yes. Along with the possibility of trading services for part of your fee, or possible additional discounts case by case, we have also recently partnered with United Medical Credit

Thousands of patients have trusted United Medical Credit to secure affordable payment plans for their procedures. United Medical Credit can do the same for you.

Some of the benefits of choosing United Medical Credit to finance your care:

• Extensive Network of Prime and Subprime Lenders

• Multiple Plans to Choose From

• Decisions Within Seconds

• No Prepayment Penalties with Flexible Terms

• Fast and Easy Application Process with No Commitment

• 100% Confidential

• Plans available for Credit Challenged Applicants