Midwifery Model of Care
Midwives provide care to women from adolescence to beyond menopause, including preconception care, family-planning, and well-woman care. The midwifery care model focuses on individualized care and optimal health, and views pregnancy and birth as a normal physiological process. Focusing on the normalcy of pregnancy and birth is central to the practice of midwifery, recognizing that many factors influence each woman’s unique experience of childbirth, including her fears and beliefs. Midwives support your unique physical, social, and emotional needs throughout your entire pregnancy, birth, and beyond.
Midwifery care places a strong emphasis on the midwife-client relationship. In this relationship, you will experience shared decision-making, informed choice, and self-determination. While always watchful for complications, we trust in each woman’s ability to have a normal, healthy, positive pregnancy and birth. In labor, this means we offer physical and emotional support, providing continuity to our clients, meaning we attend 99% of our clients’ births. Our cesarean section rate continues to remain one of the lowest in the Treasure Valley. Honoring women and their families through the midwifery model of care includes supporting mothers with lactation in the hospital after birth and in their homes if there is need.
Our Midwifery Providers
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FAQs About Our Midwifery Program
A Certified Nurse Midwife is able to attend a home birth, however the Certified Nurse Midwives at WHA prefer to use the safety net of the WHA Physicians and hospital, to provide emergent lifesaving care for both the mother and baby, in those rare instances it’s required. Therefore, we provide the Midwifery Model of Care in the hospital setting for you and your family. At Women’s Health Associates, with our collaborative approach, you and your family get the highest level of pregnancy care tailored to your needs.
Choosing a Certified Nurse Midwife doesn’t mean you have to labor without pain relief. As part of working with you on developing your personalized birth plan, your provider will discuss all of the options with you, including epidurals and other medications. Certified Nurse Midwives are trained to support unmedicated births for those who want it, but they provide medicated assisted births to make sure families have access to current pain relief methods. The focus is on supporting your birth preferences—whether that’s a traditional approach, a medicated birth, or something in between.
In the State of Idaho Certified Nurse Midwives are licensed Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRN) with full prescriptive authority. Their scope includes:
– Prenatal care throughout pregnancy
– Labor and birth support
– Postpartum care for mom and baby
– Well-woman exams (Pap smears, breast exams, annual visits)
– Family planning and birth control counseling/prescriptions
– Women’s health across the lifespan (from puberty, to fertility and throughout menopause).
Certified Nurse Midwives specialize in providing personalized care, focusing on education, shared decision-making, and emotional support. Many families value the extra time spent during appointments and their emphasis on natural, physiologic birth when possible. Certified Nurse Midwives are clinically trained professionals who closely monitor your health and your baby’s health. Women’s Health Associates Physicians and Midwives collaborate on pregnancy-related care, particularly for higher-risk pregnancies, offering families attentive, relationship-based care combined with access to medical expertise when needed.
