We also know that some people benefit from additional tests, sometimes not offered easily by your primary care provider and so we offer many more tests like vitamin d, ferritin, Unity Screen, thyroid panels, hemoglobin A1c and of course ultrasound orders. Labs are drawn in house and ultrasounds are ordered by our providers for you, done with other providers.
As parents choosing a community birth, you are already taking more responsibility for your pregnancy and birth outcome and desire to take the decision making power back – and we freely give it.
Although we can do quick appointments with you, it doesn’t take long to do vitals and listen to your baby, we choose to schedule you for appointments that are long enough to allow you to bring your kids if you want, a partner, or just have extra time to ask questions that invariably come up. We love sitting with our clients and getting to know each other to a level that is unattainable in the faster paced life we all tend to lead. Your first visit with us will be scheduled for 1.5 hours – giving you time with our office manager for financial questions and paperwork, time with our nurse or resident midwife for vitals and a blood draw and then of course still one hour with your midwife to go over your history, issues you are facing and listen to your baby’s heartbeat.
The appointments that follow this one will fluctuate between 1 hour and 30 minute appointments depending on the amount of education we know we can help you with at each specific time during your pregnancy.
Resources are made easily accessible – from recommended reading, to watching movies/borrowing books from our library. Each client starts care with us by receiving our client handbook, created over many years of practice to help give families solid research on topics of interest to them during care. Referrals to other professionals are made when it makes sense for the parents.
Group prenatals/postpartums are a type of appointment that focuses on fostering relationships in the community and on education. To achieve this, we have 4-6 different families that meet together during their appointment. Most of the appointment is spent in a classroom type setting where we teach in depth on some of the bigger pregnancy/postpartum topics. There is a shorter private meeting between the midwife and each individual family to make sure everything is going well. There is no cost to attend these – they are included in your midwifery care fee agreement.
Why Group Visits? The American College of Obstetrics says that “group prenatal care models are designed to improve patient education and include opportunities for social support while maintaining the risk screening and physical assessment of individual prenatal care”. We at New Birth Midwifery believe this is an excellent way for you to build your support network.
