August 6, 2024 • 24 mins
Hi, everyone! It's Jenn here today, and I'm thrilled to introduce you to my good friend and a wonderful midwife, Colleen Maheswaran. She's here to chat with us about home birth in 2024. Let's dive in!
Colleen has been practicing as a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) for 22 years across various states, including Florida, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Michigan. She shares insights into how regulations differ from state to state and how these differences impact midwifery practices.
Colleen shares heartfelt stories of her midwifery journey, including the incredible benefits of birth photography in helping families process their birth experiences.
Join us for an intimate conversation about the evolving world of home birth, the power of supportive care, and the unique challenges and joys of midwifery in today's world. Don't miss it!
Find more about Colleen and her practice at https://www.forestrivermidwifery.net/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, everyone. We are so excited to be here today.
Monet happens to be at a birth, and so I am going to be interviewing one of
my good friends and a lovely midwife here,
Colleen Maheswaran, and she is going to talk to us a little bit about home birth in 2024.
So we're excited to get started and dive right in with her.
(01:09):
I'm really good. Thanks. Good. Have you been busy?
July has been a little slow because I took some time off to have vacation with
my family. So important. So important.
I'm actually going on vacation tomorrow, so I'm trying to wrap up all my little things.
And we have to do this as birth workers. We need that time. Well,
why don't you introduce yourself and just tell us a little bit about you and
(01:33):
what you do and your practice. this?
So I am a homegrown midwife. I have the title CPM, which stands for Certified
Professional Midwife and Licensed Midwife, which is what's recognized here in Michigan.
I have been practicing for 22 years. I have practiced in Florida,
(01:53):
Virginia, Massachusetts, and now Michigan.
Oh, wow. I did not realize that. Oh, that's super interesting. Interesting.
Probably won't be my last stop. Right, right. Did you see a big difference in
how you practiced in each of those states?
Like, are there different regulations for CPMs in each state?
I grew as a baby midwife in Florida.
(02:16):
I originally started here in Michigan, but then once I knew this was my path,
I went to formal training down in Florida.
And I grew in a state where it was regulated.
There were laws and those made me feel really comfortable.
I liked having boundaries of things that helped keep us all similar.
(02:37):
So I grew as a baby midwife in Florida and I loved it. I loved having laws.
I loved having boundaries. It felt really safe.
And I worked there. I studied and worked there for a total of nine years.
I then moved to Massachusetts where there were no laws.
It was called illegal, meaning there was no laws regulating it or saying you couldn't do it.
(03:02):
So it was kind of a free-for-all. You didn't have to have formal training.
You could take on any risky situation.
And that did make me feel a.
Me personally, I was practicing with other women that were taking on things
that, you know, maybe should not have been considered a home birth.
(03:23):
Now, I won't get into the, you know, you know, should that be allowed?
Because I do think women should have autonomy over their bodies and good informed
consent, which is why I love midwifery.
But Michigan got licensure in 2019, which actually is what sparked me to come home. Oh, really?
(03:44):
Oh, that's great to hear. Because I do like that they have the licensure here.
When I was in Colorado, everything was very, you know, just like Florida.
There were rules, there were regulations.
That's what the midwives had to follow. And there was not a whole lot of flexibility with that.
And here, when I moved here in 2018, there was no rules or regulations.
It was kind of a free-for-all.
(04:05):
And then things changed in 2019, 2020, and then COVID hit. But it is nice to
have that safety net of regulations, I think. It does.
Honestly, I love that we can't take a type 1 diabetic.
Now, I have had type 1 diabetics call me for care. Right. My heart does want to help them. Right.
(04:27):
And I think finding the balance where we can have good, safe care,
where they feel some autonomy over their bodies is my favorite.
It, you know, but you know, if there's a bad outcome of something that was maybe
a riskier birth to do outside of a hospital, it just kind of makes us look bad. Yeah, absolutely.
(04:48):
I, you know, but I, so I moved here in 2019 and I, we did move back because
Michigan got licensed and I loved that. I love having that, the boundaries.
It's something that it's like a driver's license.
You know, it's nice that you... There's a repercussion for someone driving drunk. So when...
(05:10):
When I moved here, our laws, by the way, are the best.
We have some of the most lenient laws in the country, which is really kind of nice. Yeah.
Do you want to explain a couple of those so people know like some of the things
you can do here compared to other states that you cannot?
So we are, you know, like in Florida, we were not allowed to go past 42 weeks. Same with Colorado.
(05:36):
It was very strict. And to some degree, I still kind of agree with that.
If you're working with a good solid due date, I don't know the benefits of going past 42 weeks.
But there have been times where it was nice having the wiggle room of a couple more days.
And I was not breaking the law. We still had to do a consult.
I still had to offer her a biophysical and a non-stress test,
(05:59):
which, again, these are tools that I think can keep a baby safe.
It does tell us the placenta is working well. These are things that I personally
would want if I went to 42 weeks. Absolutely.
But it's nice having the wiggle room. It's nice having that ability to do twins or breeches at home.
In Florida, we could not do these things.
(06:20):
And they're riskier births. So, you know, they come with additional risks.
Let me say it that way. Absolutely.
I would say birth to driving in a winter storm, right? Or just driving in general.
Right. Your ideal driving conditions are going to be probably like 10 a.m.
On Sunday, you know, on a clear blue sky day. Right.
Non-ideal conditions would be a really bad winter storm with whiteout conditions.
(06:44):
So I kind of look at birth that way. Like, well, what's our risk factors that
are adding to this to help us stay safe at home? Yes, absolutely.
And I think, you know, anecdotally...
It is nice to have that wiggle room. My mother had both my sister and I at almost 43 weeks, both of us.
(07:07):
And she felt like she knew her due dates pretty well.
And I came two and a half weeks late and I was a six pound baby.
And then seven years later, my sister came three weeks late and she was a seven pound baby.
Now this is 40 years ago and who knows what due dates were.
But in my head, when I got pregnant, I just thought for sure that I was going to go to 42, 43 weeks.
(07:32):
And it gave me a lot of anxiety when I was in Colorado to think,
OK, here's this cutoff, this magical number at 42 weeks when I might not be able to deliver at home.
And I didn't get to that point, so it didn't really matter. But it was something
that went through my head.
And I do think, you know, when you have a little bit of flexibility on that
and you you can talk to your midwife about it.
(07:53):
I think that's so beneficial for mental health in birth too.
And not having everything being so, so rigid, you know, you do have a little bit of flexibility.
I think that's the best thing about having a small private practice is that
I know my clients, I feel their bellies, there's no other provider touching them but me.
(08:16):
And I can tell like if a placenta is starting to calcify, I can notice the symptoms,
you know, the reduced fluid in our belly.
You know, we're doing kick counts, we're texting, we're talking all the time.
There's a different level of intimacy involved that I feel makes this care even
(08:37):
safer to go past 42 weeks.
You're not going to be texting your provider, you know, oh, I only got seven
movements in the next, you know, last three hours,
you know, but my ladies text me stuff and And I will tell you a story where
I had somebody, I went to her home to do an all-sculptated acceleration test.
That's my home birth version of a non-stress test.
(09:00):
And I went to her home to do this test and I put my hands on her belly and I
just could feel the outline of the baby.
And I was like, whoa, where'd your fluid go?
And I recommended an NST and a biophysical straightaway at U of M,
which is our local hospital that we transfer to a lot. We have a great relationship with them.
And she started crying. She was like, I don't want to go to the hospital. I'm afraid.
(09:26):
And I did my auscultation test. The baby did great. And I said,
well, let's just count fetal movement.
And I left. And later that day, I texted her asking how many fetal movements
had she had in the past four hours. And she said only seven.
And that was really dangerous. And so I said straight away, I said,
you have to go to U of M. And her fluid was, she had no traceable fluid left. Wow.
(09:52):
So, you know, like those are the safety measures. And she was nearly 42 weeks.
So it was a good call. You know, her placenta was pretty great.
And so I just love that I can provide that level of one-on-one care.
Yeah. And that's so important. So going back to kind of like the crux of the discussion today,
(10:12):
I'd love to talk about like what you're seeing now in 2024 and maybe how that
differs even just a little bit from years past.
And more so, what are you seeing with your clients?
Why are people coming to you in 2024 for home births? I'm noticing that people
are much more aware of what happens in the hospital system and are more nervous to go to the hospital.
(10:38):
And I've not seen that as much in the previous eight years as I have in the last two.
So I'd love to hear like what you're experiencing, because my experience is very different.
I have people, you know, home birth, hospital birth, you know,
kind of from all over, but you're working with a very specific local population there.
So I'd love to hear, you know, what you're seeing.
(11:00):
Yeah. Interesting question, because when I lived in South Florida, home birth was raging.
We had been licensed for decades, and it was really common to birth outside of the hospital there.
We were all super busy.
I had no idea Florida was that busy. Wait, so let's go back.
(11:20):
What years were you there?
I'm just curious. I moved there in 2001.
I graduated midwifery school in 2004.
And then I practiced from 2004 until 2010 down in Florida.
And there was multiple freestanding birth centers, Loads of home birth midwives.
And we were all really busy.
(11:42):
Great community of midwives down there, by the way. I'd love to say that.
When I moved here, it was not that way.
There was no insurance reimbursement. The home birth midwives here,
I hate to say the word starving because that's, you know, it sounds terrible.
But they were not busy. Yeah.
(12:03):
It is such a different place now, post-COVID. I started my private practice
on March 6th of 2020, a week before the shutdown.
And I told my husband, I said, well, if I get my first due date for the fall, that'd be about right.
(12:23):
And bam, I was full for March. I was full for April.
I was full for May. Like it just, you know, people were coming in droves to birth at home.
And then after COVID, you know,
after it mellowed, we all assumed it would just go back to the way it was.
But I think social media is the big difference, you know, from when I started practicing.
(12:47):
I mean, I didn't even have a cell phone when I started practicing.
I had a picture in my bra and went nightclubbing. That is so crazy. Crazy.
I talk about that. Monet and I talk about that a lot.
We're always like, what if we did this job prior to cell phones,
which wasn't that far away from when both of us started.
And we talk about pagers and that's how like midwives got contacted or Kathleen,
(13:12):
one of our doulas that works here locally with Colleen and I said that it used
to be like a midwife phone tree where you'd call the midwife's house and the
husband or partner or whoever would be like,
nope, she's at this place at this time. And then you have to start calling like patients' houses.
I can't even imagine the stress level between then and like now where you can
(13:33):
just be contacted 24-7 all the time.
Yeah, which that has its advantages and disadvantages. Right,
exactly. Oh, we know, yes.
You know, I, going back to the difference of, you know, 24 or just even post-COVID,
I mean, my practice has only gotten busier.
(13:54):
I'm in a very blessed situation where I turn people away.
I mean, not that I love doing that, but I have more work than I can handle.
And I feel really grateful for that.
Now, I do feel like social media has been what kept the bubble in the air for us.
People were posting these, you know, with your help, you know, photographing these,
(14:17):
you know, empowering home births where people are catching their own babies
and in their living rooms and seeing, you know, the babies having the placenta
connected for hours and, you know, that uninterrupted skin to skin.
I've had, I had a home birth once where I had to do some inflation breaths on
the baby right in the tub.
(14:38):
And the photographer I noticed had stopped shooting. And I said,
no, no, keep, keep going.
Like keep shooting. This is part of her story. And, and so there I was with the baby,
you know, I had the baby's airway lifted on her shoulder and I'm just resuscitating
and the pool still connected to the cord and, and the baby was fine.
(14:58):
He just needed a few breaths.
And then went right back to mom's arms and he never left her.
And people see this and they see this and they go, wow, that's home birth?
Nobody took their baby? That's absolutely.
So you have not heard the episode. It hasn't even aired yet.
(15:19):
I haven't even talked to you about this. But Monet and I actually recorded an
episode about hospital birth.
And we said a very similar statement where at home births, it seems like any
resuscitation, not any.
A lot of resuscitation and help can be done on the baby's chest.
We're in hospitals, we're seeing the cord immediately cut and the baby taken away immediately.
(15:39):
And that is hard and traumatic for people, especially when it's not necessary.
And so you allowing the photographer to keep shooting and encouraging her to
keep shooting, I think is really powerful in the knowledge that you know your own skill,
you knew what the baby was doing and how the baby was responding and that the
(16:00):
mom was going to want to look back and see those photos again.
I think that's really important. She was a very special client of mine.
I mean, they all are. Right.
Again, like I think I have the best job on the planet. But, you know,
you spend so much time with your clients. You spend the whole pregnancy.
You start seeing them weekly at the end. Then you're seeing them in their home
(16:23):
intimately for days after.
And, you know, and then the six-week visit comes. You're like,
what? You know, and then you start to notice, oh, well, there's,
you know, a new crop of women now in my care.
And it takes a minute to like form that bond.
And so that's why I love what I do.
And that aspect of it has not changed. Mm-hmm. Another thing that I feel like
(16:47):
has changed outside of just social media, it's been movement therapy.
So much with those, that aspect of birth has really changed my practice, I think, the most.
And like, tell us what you mean specifically by movement therapy.
So I would say the average length of time I spent before baby came out of birth,
(17:13):
before I knew spinning babies, the mile circuit, body ready method, all of these,
movement therapy ways of balancing the body to get the baby into an ideal fit in the pelvis.
Is what's changed the amount of time I'm at a birth.
You know, average time would have been eight to 12 hours. Now it's two to four.
(17:37):
You get that baby and that body balanced and lined up and And those babies,
they come fast. I mean, sometimes so fast.
Right, right. We've had some fast births together. So, yeah.
Yeah. And that has really made a big difference for me.
You know, I've gone to some of these, you know, trainings and learned the things.
(18:00):
And I practice them on myself with my own injuries.
I mean, not necessarily the ones for pregnancy, but ones geared for sport injuries.
I've had injuries that I could not fix with chiropractic care and osteopathic
care. It was the movement therapy that I needed.
And so I've seen the difference in myself, which helps motivate me to encourage
(18:21):
my clients to do it as well. Yeah, I think that's really important and a great
thing to discuss and talk about.
I also wanted to ask you about photos as a way of processing clients' births.
As a midwife, are you finding that photography is helpful to your clients in
processing birth, whether it's professional or cell phone photos?
(18:42):
What are you seeing and how do you think that benefits your client or maybe
it doesn't? And how about does it benefit you as well?
So true confession. I took your birth photography. She took our essence of birth
course. Midwife who loves photos. Wonderful.
Photographer. Right now I'm just too needed as a midwife, but I have a huge
(19:06):
passion for photography and I, anyone that wants a photographer,
I do my best to get them one.
And if they, you know, don't want that or, or, you know, don't have the money
for one, I love taking pictures for them.
And I have a front row seat and I'll just pull my phone out of my pocket and
capture those images for them. And it is so powerful.
(19:28):
Sometimes there was a birth recently where the mother wanted photos,
but did not want a video of her birth because, well, I didn't have the videos for the other kiddos.
So I don't think it's kind to do it for this one because then my other kids
might feel sad. Those were her words.
And I said, absolutely, we'll just do photos. Well, Well, her pushing phase
(19:51):
was crazy long and very hard.
She kept second guessing herself and what's wrong with me? What am I doing wrong?
And, you know, I kept reassuring her it's just baby's position.
Well, sure enough, he was posterior and big.
And as this baby started coming sunny side up, I grabbed my phone.
(20:12):
Dad was catching and I just started filming it. And I thought, you know what?
We can delete it if she really doesn't want it. it, I'll delete it.
But this is such a unique birth. And it's so powerful to birth that way.
It really is. It takes so much strength. And so, and this poor kid had his cord.
He couldn't move out of his posterior position because his umbilical cord was
(20:32):
around him like suspenders.
And so, you know, as he's coming, the dad's catching and he's like,
what do I do about the cord?
I'm like, just kind of take it off, you know? And so we're sort of whispering,
you know, while I'm filming.
And she loved it. Seeing that video, seeing her body and her husband doing that
(20:53):
was so powerful for her. It really is.
It absolutely is. Even with my own birth, I had like eight years ago,
I had Monet photograph it and she took some video clips and she asked me if
I wanted the moment of birth photographed or filmed.
And I said photographed. and I wish
to God I would have gone back and said film because she
(21:16):
just she kind of flew out really fast it was like 50
hours of labor and then one like sporadic fetal ejection push I don't know it
was kind of I'm like really we couldn't have sped this up but it was cool and
I don't have that because we have photos which are great and I love them they're
amazing but that video is powerful, right?
(21:38):
Like you really get to see it, especially when it's unique like that posterior baby face eyes open.
I always think that is just so cool. So.
And it's cool to see what our bodies are capable of. It really is.
You know, I mean, it takes so much power and bravery and strength to,
(21:58):
you know, go through that surrender to birth the baby.
And then the pride you get.
I remember feeling like my vagina was shredding when I was birthing my first.
My doula was taking phones, photos for me.
And my thought bubbles were, stop, like why are you doing that? Right.
(22:24):
I loved them. I loved my crotch shots so much. I was showing them to people
at the airport. I love that.
That's awesome. I mean, it was somebody I was chatting with and we had gotten
kind of intimate and she was traveling to a birth.
But anyway, those pictures are incredible to me.
(22:44):
And I think it's universal. You know, like if somebody else like likes birth
at least a little bit or was empowered by their own birth and you can talk about
it with them and you have photos like I don't know,
like I I would show my birth photos to anybody who wanted to talk to me about
it. Like, I just think it's the coolest thing.
And I love that you did that. It's awesome.
(23:07):
Oh, the best. Well, thank you so much for being here, Colleen.
This has been great to talk to you and just to get your perspective on home
births and midwifery and in 2024.
And I really loved hearing all of your experiences from Florida to Massachusetts
to Michigan and everything in between.
(23:29):
So thank you so much for being here and sharing that with us.
Thanks for having me. And have a great rest of your day.
And vacation. Yes, thank you. I'm so excited. My parents have their 50th wedding anniversary.
So we are spending the week up north together as a family. So that will be a lot of fun.
(23:50):
Have a good time. All right. Thanks, Colleen. Bye. Bye.
Hi, everyone. We are so excited to be here today.
Monet happens to be at a birth, and so I am going to be interviewing one of
my good friends and a lovely midwife here,
Colleen Maheswaran, and she is going to talk to us a little bit about home birth in 2024.
So we're excited to get started and dive right in with her.
(01:09):
I'm really good. Thanks. Good. Have you been busy?
July has been a little slow because I took some time off to have vacation with
my family. So important. So important.
I'm actually going on vacation tomorrow, so I'm trying to wrap up all my little things.
And we have to do this as birth workers. We need that time. Well,
why don't you introduce yourself and just tell us a little bit about you and
(01:33):
what you do and your practice. this?
So I am a homegrown midwife. I have the title CPM, which stands for Certified
Professional Midwife and Licensed Midwife, which is what's recognized here in Michigan.
I have been practicing for 22 years. I have practiced in Florida,
(01:53):
Virginia, Massachusetts, and now Michigan.
Oh, wow. I did not realize that. Oh, that's super interesting. Interesting.
Probably won't be my last stop. Right, right. Did you see a big difference in
how you practiced in each of those states?
Like, are there different regulations for CPMs in each state?
I grew as a baby midwife in Florida.
(02:16):
I originally started here in Michigan, but then once I knew this was my path,
I went to formal training down in Florida.
And I grew in a state where it was regulated.
There were laws and those made me feel really comfortable.
I liked having boundaries of things that helped keep us all similar.
(02:37):
So I grew as a baby midwife in Florida and I loved it. I loved having laws.
I loved having boundaries. It felt really safe.
And I worked there. I studied and worked there for a total of nine years.
I then moved to Massachusetts where there were no laws.
It was called illegal, meaning there was no laws regulating it or saying you couldn't do it.
(03:02):
So it was kind of a free-for-all. You didn't have to have formal training.
You could take on any risky situation.
And that did make me feel a.
Me personally, I was practicing with other women that were taking on things
that, you know, maybe should not have been considered a home birth.
(03:23):
Now, I won't get into the, you know, you know, should that be allowed?
Because I do think women should have autonomy over their bodies and good informed
consent, which is why I love midwifery.
But Michigan got licensure in 2019, which actually is what sparked me to come home. Oh, really?
(03:44):
Oh, that's great to hear. Because I do like that they have the licensure here.
When I was in Colorado, everything was very, you know, just like Florida.
There were rules, there were regulations.
That's what the midwives had to follow. And there was not a whole lot of flexibility with that.
And here, when I moved here in 2018, there was no rules or regulations.
It was kind of a free-for-all.
(04:05):
And then things changed in 2019, 2020, and then COVID hit. But it is nice to
have that safety net of regulations, I think. It does.
Honestly, I love that we can't take a type 1 diabetic.
Now, I have had type 1 diabetics call me for care. Right. My heart does want to help them. Right.
(04:27):
And I think finding the balance where we can have good, safe care,
where they feel some autonomy over their bodies is my favorite.
It, you know, but you know, if there's a bad outcome of something that was maybe
a riskier birth to do outside of a hospital, it just kind of makes us look bad. Yeah, absolutely.
(04:48):
I, you know, but I, so I moved here in 2019 and I, we did move back because
Michigan got licensed and I loved that. I love having that, the boundaries.
It's something that it's like a driver's license.
You know, it's nice that you... There's a repercussion for someone driving drunk. So when...
(05:10):
When I moved here, our laws, by the way, are the best.
We have some of the most lenient laws in the country, which is really kind of nice. Yeah.
Do you want to explain a couple of those so people know like some of the things
you can do here compared to other states that you cannot?
So we are, you know, like in Florida, we were not allowed to go past 42 weeks. Same with Colorado.
(05:36):
It was very strict. And to some degree, I still kind of agree with that.
If you're working with a good solid due date, I don't know the benefits of going past 42 weeks.
But there have been times where it was nice having the wiggle room of a couple more days.
And I was not breaking the law. We still had to do a consult.
I still had to offer her a biophysical and a non-stress test,
(05:59):
which, again, these are tools that I think can keep a baby safe.
It does tell us the placenta is working well. These are things that I personally
would want if I went to 42 weeks. Absolutely.
But it's nice having the wiggle room. It's nice having that ability to do twins or breeches at home.
In Florida, we could not do these things.
(06:20):
And they're riskier births. So, you know, they come with additional risks.
Let me say it that way. Absolutely.
I would say birth to driving in a winter storm, right? Or just driving in general.
Right. Your ideal driving conditions are going to be probably like 10 a.m.
On Sunday, you know, on a clear blue sky day. Right.
Non-ideal conditions would be a really bad winter storm with whiteout conditions.
(06:44):
So I kind of look at birth that way. Like, well, what's our risk factors that
are adding to this to help us stay safe at home? Yes, absolutely.
And I think, you know, anecdotally...
It is nice to have that wiggle room. My mother had both my sister and I at almost 43 weeks, both of us.
(07:07):
And she felt like she knew her due dates pretty well.
And I came two and a half weeks late and I was a six pound baby.
And then seven years later, my sister came three weeks late and she was a seven pound baby.
Now this is 40 years ago and who knows what due dates were.
But in my head, when I got pregnant, I just thought for sure that I was going to go to 42, 43 weeks.
(07:32):
And it gave me a lot of anxiety when I was in Colorado to think,
OK, here's this cutoff, this magical number at 42 weeks when I might not be able to deliver at home.
And I didn't get to that point, so it didn't really matter. But it was something
that went through my head.
And I do think, you know, when you have a little bit of flexibility on that
and you you can talk to your midwife about it.
(07:53):
I think that's so beneficial for mental health in birth too.
And not having everything being so, so rigid, you know, you do have a little bit of flexibility.
I think that's the best thing about having a small private practice is that
I know my clients, I feel their bellies, there's no other provider touching them but me.
(08:16):
And I can tell like if a placenta is starting to calcify, I can notice the symptoms,
you know, the reduced fluid in our belly.
You know, we're doing kick counts, we're texting, we're talking all the time.
There's a different level of intimacy involved that I feel makes this care even
(08:37):
safer to go past 42 weeks.
You're not going to be texting your provider, you know, oh, I only got seven
movements in the next, you know, last three hours,
you know, but my ladies text me stuff and And I will tell you a story where
I had somebody, I went to her home to do an all-sculptated acceleration test.
That's my home birth version of a non-stress test.
(09:00):
And I went to her home to do this test and I put my hands on her belly and I
just could feel the outline of the baby.
And I was like, whoa, where'd your fluid go?
And I recommended an NST and a biophysical straightaway at U of M,
which is our local hospital that we transfer to a lot. We have a great relationship with them.
And she started crying. She was like, I don't want to go to the hospital. I'm afraid.
(09:26):
And I did my auscultation test. The baby did great. And I said,
well, let's just count fetal movement.
And I left. And later that day, I texted her asking how many fetal movements
had she had in the past four hours. And she said only seven.
And that was really dangerous. And so I said straight away, I said,
you have to go to U of M. And her fluid was, she had no traceable fluid left. Wow.
(09:52):
So, you know, like those are the safety measures. And she was nearly 42 weeks.
So it was a good call. You know, her placenta was pretty great.
And so I just love that I can provide that level of one-on-one care.
Yeah. And that's so important. So going back to kind of like the crux of the discussion today,
(10:12):
I'd love to talk about like what you're seeing now in 2024 and maybe how that
differs even just a little bit from years past.
And more so, what are you seeing with your clients?
Why are people coming to you in 2024 for home births? I'm noticing that people
are much more aware of what happens in the hospital system and are more nervous to go to the hospital.
(10:38):
And I've not seen that as much in the previous eight years as I have in the last two.
So I'd love to hear like what you're experiencing, because my experience is very different.
I have people, you know, home birth, hospital birth, you know,
kind of from all over, but you're working with a very specific local population there.
So I'd love to hear, you know, what you're seeing.
(11:00):
Yeah. Interesting question, because when I lived in South Florida, home birth was raging.
We had been licensed for decades, and it was really common to birth outside of the hospital there.
We were all super busy.
I had no idea Florida was that busy. Wait, so let's go back.
(11:20):
What years were you there?
I'm just curious. I moved there in 2001.
I graduated midwifery school in 2004.
And then I practiced from 2004 until 2010 down in Florida.
And there was multiple freestanding birth centers, Loads of home birth midwives.
And we were all really busy.
(11:42):
Great community of midwives down there, by the way. I'd love to say that.
When I moved here, it was not that way.
There was no insurance reimbursement. The home birth midwives here,
I hate to say the word starving because that's, you know, it sounds terrible.
But they were not busy. Yeah.
(12:03):
It is such a different place now, post-COVID. I started my private practice
on March 6th of 2020, a week before the shutdown.
And I told my husband, I said, well, if I get my first due date for the fall, that'd be about right.
(12:23):
And bam, I was full for March. I was full for April.
I was full for May. Like it just, you know, people were coming in droves to birth at home.
And then after COVID, you know,
after it mellowed, we all assumed it would just go back to the way it was.
But I think social media is the big difference, you know, from when I started practicing.
(12:47):
I mean, I didn't even have a cell phone when I started practicing.
I had a picture in my bra and went nightclubbing. That is so crazy. Crazy.
I talk about that. Monet and I talk about that a lot.
We're always like, what if we did this job prior to cell phones,
which wasn't that far away from when both of us started.
And we talk about pagers and that's how like midwives got contacted or Kathleen,
(13:12):
one of our doulas that works here locally with Colleen and I said that it used
to be like a midwife phone tree where you'd call the midwife's house and the
husband or partner or whoever would be like,
nope, she's at this place at this time. And then you have to start calling like patients' houses.
I can't even imagine the stress level between then and like now where you can
(13:33):
just be contacted 24-7 all the time.
Yeah, which that has its advantages and disadvantages. Right,
exactly. Oh, we know, yes.
You know, I, going back to the difference of, you know, 24 or just even post-COVID,
I mean, my practice has only gotten busier.
(13:54):
I'm in a very blessed situation where I turn people away.
I mean, not that I love doing that, but I have more work than I can handle.
And I feel really grateful for that.
Now, I do feel like social media has been what kept the bubble in the air for us.
People were posting these, you know, with your help, you know, photographing these,
(14:17):
you know, empowering home births where people are catching their own babies
and in their living rooms and seeing, you know, the babies having the placenta
connected for hours and, you know, that uninterrupted skin to skin.
I've had, I had a home birth once where I had to do some inflation breaths on
the baby right in the tub.
(14:38):
And the photographer I noticed had stopped shooting. And I said,
no, no, keep, keep going.
Like keep shooting. This is part of her story. And, and so there I was with the baby,
you know, I had the baby's airway lifted on her shoulder and I'm just resuscitating
and the pool still connected to the cord and, and the baby was fine.
(14:58):
He just needed a few breaths.
And then went right back to mom's arms and he never left her.
And people see this and they see this and they go, wow, that's home birth?
Nobody took their baby? That's absolutely.
So you have not heard the episode. It hasn't even aired yet.
(15:19):
I haven't even talked to you about this. But Monet and I actually recorded an
episode about hospital birth.
And we said a very similar statement where at home births, it seems like any
resuscitation, not any.
A lot of resuscitation and help can be done on the baby's chest.
We're in hospitals, we're seeing the cord immediately cut and the baby taken away immediately.
(15:39):
And that is hard and traumatic for people, especially when it's not necessary.
And so you allowing the photographer to keep shooting and encouraging her to
keep shooting, I think is really powerful in the knowledge that you know your own skill,
you knew what the baby was doing and how the baby was responding and that the
(16:00):
mom was going to want to look back and see those photos again.
I think that's really important. She was a very special client of mine.
I mean, they all are. Right.
Again, like I think I have the best job on the planet. But, you know,
you spend so much time with your clients. You spend the whole pregnancy.
You start seeing them weekly at the end. Then you're seeing them in their home
(16:23):
intimately for days after.
And, you know, and then the six-week visit comes. You're like,
what? You know, and then you start to notice, oh, well, there's,
you know, a new crop of women now in my care.
And it takes a minute to like form that bond.
And so that's why I love what I do.
And that aspect of it has not changed. Mm-hmm. Another thing that I feel like
(16:47):
has changed outside of just social media, it's been movement therapy.
So much with those, that aspect of birth has really changed my practice, I think, the most.
And like, tell us what you mean specifically by movement therapy.
So I would say the average length of time I spent before baby came out of birth,
(17:13):
before I knew spinning babies, the mile circuit, body ready method, all of these,
movement therapy ways of balancing the body to get the baby into an ideal fit in the pelvis.
Is what's changed the amount of time I'm at a birth.
You know, average time would have been eight to 12 hours. Now it's two to four.
(17:37):
You get that baby and that body balanced and lined up and And those babies,
they come fast. I mean, sometimes so fast.
Right, right. We've had some fast births together. So, yeah.
Yeah. And that has really made a big difference for me.
You know, I've gone to some of these, you know, trainings and learned the things.
(18:00):
And I practice them on myself with my own injuries.
I mean, not necessarily the ones for pregnancy, but ones geared for sport injuries.
I've had injuries that I could not fix with chiropractic care and osteopathic
care. It was the movement therapy that I needed.
And so I've seen the difference in myself, which helps motivate me to encourage
(18:21):
my clients to do it as well. Yeah, I think that's really important and a great
thing to discuss and talk about.
I also wanted to ask you about photos as a way of processing clients' births.
As a midwife, are you finding that photography is helpful to your clients in
processing birth, whether it's professional or cell phone photos?
(18:42):
What are you seeing and how do you think that benefits your client or maybe
it doesn't? And how about does it benefit you as well?
So true confession. I took your birth photography. She took our essence of birth
course. Midwife who loves photos. Wonderful.
Photographer. Right now I'm just too needed as a midwife, but I have a huge
(19:06):
passion for photography and I, anyone that wants a photographer,
I do my best to get them one.
And if they, you know, don't want that or, or, you know, don't have the money
for one, I love taking pictures for them.
And I have a front row seat and I'll just pull my phone out of my pocket and
capture those images for them. And it is so powerful.
(19:28):
Sometimes there was a birth recently where the mother wanted photos,
but did not want a video of her birth because, well, I didn't have the videos for the other kiddos.
So I don't think it's kind to do it for this one because then my other kids
might feel sad. Those were her words.
And I said, absolutely, we'll just do photos. Well, Well, her pushing phase
(19:51):
was crazy long and very hard.
She kept second guessing herself and what's wrong with me? What am I doing wrong?
And, you know, I kept reassuring her it's just baby's position.
Well, sure enough, he was posterior and big.
And as this baby started coming sunny side up, I grabbed my phone.
(20:12):
Dad was catching and I just started filming it. And I thought, you know what?
We can delete it if she really doesn't want it. it, I'll delete it.
But this is such a unique birth. And it's so powerful to birth that way.
It really is. It takes so much strength. And so, and this poor kid had his cord.
He couldn't move out of his posterior position because his umbilical cord was
(20:32):
around him like suspenders.
And so, you know, as he's coming, the dad's catching and he's like,
what do I do about the cord?
I'm like, just kind of take it off, you know? And so we're sort of whispering,
you know, while I'm filming.
And she loved it. Seeing that video, seeing her body and her husband doing that
(20:53):
was so powerful for her. It really is.
It absolutely is. Even with my own birth, I had like eight years ago,
I had Monet photograph it and she took some video clips and she asked me if
I wanted the moment of birth photographed or filmed.
And I said photographed. and I wish
to God I would have gone back and said film because she
(21:16):
just she kind of flew out really fast it was like 50
hours of labor and then one like sporadic fetal ejection push I don't know it
was kind of I'm like really we couldn't have sped this up but it was cool and
I don't have that because we have photos which are great and I love them they're
amazing but that video is powerful, right?
(21:38):
Like you really get to see it, especially when it's unique like that posterior baby face eyes open.
I always think that is just so cool. So.
And it's cool to see what our bodies are capable of. It really is.
You know, I mean, it takes so much power and bravery and strength to,
(21:58):
you know, go through that surrender to birth the baby.
And then the pride you get.
I remember feeling like my vagina was shredding when I was birthing my first.
My doula was taking phones, photos for me.
And my thought bubbles were, stop, like why are you doing that? Right.
(22:24):
I loved them. I loved my crotch shots so much. I was showing them to people
at the airport. I love that.
That's awesome. I mean, it was somebody I was chatting with and we had gotten
kind of intimate and she was traveling to a birth.
But anyway, those pictures are incredible to me.
(22:44):
And I think it's universal. You know, like if somebody else like likes birth
at least a little bit or was empowered by their own birth and you can talk about
it with them and you have photos like I don't know,
like I I would show my birth photos to anybody who wanted to talk to me about
it. Like, I just think it's the coolest thing.
And I love that you did that. It's awesome.
(23:07):
Oh, the best. Well, thank you so much for being here, Colleen.
This has been great to talk to you and just to get your perspective on home
births and midwifery and in 2024.
And I really loved hearing all of your experiences from Florida to Massachusetts
to Michigan and everything in between.
(23:29):
So thank you so much for being here and sharing that with us.
Thanks for having me. And have a great rest of your day.
And vacation. Yes, thank you. I'm so excited. My parents have their 50th wedding anniversary.
So we are spending the week up north together as a family. So that will be a lot of fun.
(23:50):
Have a good time. All right. Thanks, Colleen. Bye. Bye.
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