Prenatal Care
Prenatal Care
Time
One of the biggest benefits of midwifery care is the amount of time spent in in getting to listen to you, getting to know you, providing education, and learning about what you imagine for your labor, birth, and postpartum. We encourage you to bring your support people to your appointments.
Group Care
This may be an unfamiliar concept to you but prenatal group care allows us to present education and then go wherever the conversation leads so that everyone in the group benefits from questions and discussion. Someone may ask a question that you hadn’t thought of or were shy to ask. You may have an answer or suggestion to a question that someone else in the group asks. While we meet as a group for the bulk of time, you will have a private time for measuring, palpating for baby’s position later in pregnancy, listening to heart tones, screening for risk factors, and discuss anything you want to keep private.
Education at group care appointments will be about nutritional, physical, and emotional needs during pregnancy, common discomforts of pregnancy and what you can do for it, how to prepare for labor and homebirth, nesting, and preparing for the postpartum babymoon.
Visits
Your first prenatal visit is for one hour and will be a private appointment. We offer bloodwork and genetic testing (drawn in the office), referrals for ultrasound, collect your health history, and get to know you and your plans for labor, birth, and postpartum.
Frequency
4 to 28 weeks – every 4 weeks
28-36 weeks – every 2 weeks
37-42 weeks – every week One of your last appointments will be at your home to prepare for birth, learn how to get to your home, learn the layout of your home, organize supplies, and discuss birth-day details and specifics. It will be like a dress rehearsal and everyone who you are planning to be at the birth invited to this home visit.
A la carte
If you prefer midwifery care but plan to deliver in a hospital, for whatever reason, schedule a free consult and we’ll discuss our a la carte pricing.
Sometimes it is necessary to see an obstetrician for more specialized care due to a reason that moves you out of the low-risk normal range. We are happy to offer collaborative care so that you can have the best of both worlds.