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The Home Team
Where Do You Start When Drafting Your Homebirth Delivery Team?
By Lisa A. Goldstein
You've decided you want a homebirth. Now what? How do you go about building your homebirth team?
Since you ideally want a provider who is experienced with homebirth, you could find a midwife who attends homebirth by searching midwifery Web sites, suggests Michelle Collins, Instructor in Clinical Nursing, Nurse-Midwifery Specialty at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing in Nashville, Tenn.
"On a national scope, one can go to the American College of Nurse-Midwives Web site and click on 'find a midwife' where she can then enter her zip code and locate all midwifery practices within a specific mile radius," Collins says. "There are also physicians who attend homebirths – searching homebirth practices on the Internet could help her locate specific practices."
Collins says there are also certified professional midwives and lay midwives who attend homebirths. "Web sites like those of MANA (Midwives Alliance of North America) may also be very helpful," she says.
Additionally, many homebirth providers will also work with a doula (trained labor assistant) or the woman may wish to hire one herself, Collins says. The doula would be available to provide labor support to the woman and support to her partner.
Collins thinks personal recommendations from friends or relatives who have used the services of the practitioner are valuable. "It is so important for the woman and her partner to feel that they have a trusting and open relationship with the person who will attend this most important of events in their lives," Collins says. "Thus, interviewing the potential provider, either before pregnancy or as soon as possible after, is crucial. The choice of one's provider is a momentous decision."
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