Help Us To Build Mississippi's 1st Birth Center!
Why Midwifery Care?
We are one of only three clinics in Mississippi staffed with a certified nurse midwife. All insurance plans, including Medicaid, cover certified nurse midwives (CNM) but not certified professional midwives (CPM) or direct entry midwives (DEM) (also known as lay midwives).
Research comparing standard physician care with certified nurse midwifery care found that women who receive care from a certified nurse midwife experienced significantly lower rates of cesarean birth, labor induction, third and fourth degree perineal tears, regional anesthesia and higher rates of spontaneous vaginal births, breastfeeding, and are less likely to experience preterm birth, fetal loss before and after 24 weeks and neonatal death. Moreover, studies have shown that women are more satisfied with a continuity model of midwifery care. Women report experiencing higher levels of emotional support, quality care, and feeling actively involved in decision-making.
Home Health Care
Clients are assigned a health worker who provides health education, health coaching, support, and patient advocacy throughout the pregnancy, birth, and postpartum periods during regular home health visits to ensure you accomplish your birth goals. The relationship between the health worker and client is crucial to birth outcomes.
Prenatal Nutrition Education
We teach and coach you to eat healthy during your pregnancy so you gain adequate weight. Overweight and obese women are at an increased risk of several pregnancy problems. These problems include gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, preeclampsia, preterm birth, and cesarean delivery. Babies of overweight and obese women also are at greater risk of certain problems, such as birth defects, macrosomia with possible birth injury, and childhood obesity.
Maternal Mortality and Postpartum Care
Postpartum is a perilous time for mothers, particularly Black mothers, who have a pregnancy related death rate 3 times that of white women in Mississippi. Of all maternal mortality deaths specifically tied to pregnancy complications, 86% occur after the baby is born. More mothers in our state are dying after childbirth than nearly anywhere else in the U.S. Heart disease, hypertension, and infections are the leading causes of pregnancy related deaths in Mississippi.
Our providers will educate you about your risks of a pregnancy related death and help you to take the necessary steps to avoid diseases and complications that can lead to death.
Our health workers continue to provide support in the home after the baby is born: including screening for birth defects, maternal complications, teaching parents how to care for an infant child, and providing breastfeeding counseling. Clients also receive a final primary care visit to prepare for their next birth.
Certified Prenatal Yoga Classes
Julianne, a certified prenatal yoga instructor, has been teaching yoga (PranaVayu) since 2013 starting in Dubai, UAE and recently she finished a 300 hr teacher training at Bella Prana Yoga in Tampa Fl. For Julianne, yoga is a way of life, and an art-form that brings a person inside themselves and allows one to find their truest expression and light. That original stardust that connects us to each other and the universe. Julianne’s goal is to be an enlightening uplifting teacher, she wants her classes to be a place where one feels at home along with a little sweat, smiles, trust and ease, a place to create a community, and reflect inward, even for just a moment.
Free Prenatal Vitamins
Our plan of care includes Vitamin Angels prenatal vitamins that have been proven to reduce rates of preterm births, low birth weight babies, and infant death.
Doula Support
During delivery, our doula trained health worker will be in constant and close proximity to you, providing comfort with pain-relief techniques including breathing techniques, relaxation techniques, massage, and laboring positions. They will serve as an advocate for you, encouraging and helping you to experience a positive and save birth.
Watch this video from Doula Diaries here:
Personalized Breastfeeding Support
Our staff will educate you about breastfeeding and help you to begin breastfeeding immediately following your birth provide breastfeeding support in your home.
Breastfeeding provides numerous health benefits to your child, such as lower incidences of SIDS, childhood obesity, asthma, allergies and diabetes as well as increased intelligence and parental bonding.
It also provides many health benefits to you, such as decreased rates of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, postpartum hemorrhage and depression, and it helps you to lose weight.
Black women continue to have the lowest rates of breastfeeding initiation (60%) and continuation at 6 months (28%) and 12 months (13%) compared with all other racial/ethnic groups in the United States.