I am a nurse midwifery student in New York City. I finished the nursing portion of my program in May 2010 and plan to finish the midwifery portion in October 2011. I'm excited to use this blog as a forum for exploring my own midwifery education as well as the education of other midwives going through other programs!
Sarah - Blogger Profile - Posts
I am a Labor and Delivery nurse at a medium sized hospital on the east coast. I am starting my midwifery education in August 2011. I hope to use this blog to collaborate what I see in my professional life and my midwifery thoughts and ideas. I hope to not only contribute to this blog, but to learn from it as well. In my free time (the little of it that I have) I enjoy playing and coaching volleyball, and crocheting. Thank you all for reading!
Valerie - Blogger Profile - Posts
I am a doula CD(DONA) and direct-entry midwifery student based in SLC, UT. I am also concurrently getting my PhD in Literature and Creative Writing, which is what led me to UT in the first place, though I have also lived in the Midwest, New England, Paris, and the south, which afforded me the chance to observe birth practices in many different communities. My PhD research focuses on representations of all "othered" bodies, especially including pregnant bodies, which are so often characterized in historical literature as "monstrous." This feeds into my desire for a birthwork practice that normalizes the processes of pregnancy and birth. I am especially interested in homebirth, though the majority of my experiences have been in a hospital setting. The lack of power to truly help my clients as a doula when in a setting where the OB was in control and resistant to my client's wishes led me to pursue midwifery, so that I would have the power to get out of a woman's way and let her birth as her body instructs her to do. I also come at birth from the perspective of infertility. Though I will likely never give birth to my own child, I am grateful for the opportunity to help so many other people with their pregnancies and birth.
Mai'a
Mai’a ‘who should have been named Nikki’ according to the poet, Nikki Giovanni, is a visionary and media maker. She has lived and worked in the Middle East, southern Mexico and east Africa with refugee and displaced women under the threat of violence, also she has organized and accompanied communities and persons within the US/Canadian urban landscape, engaging in issues including: race, working poor, sex work, prisons, drug addiction, police brutality, and queer rights. Living in Cairo, Egypt, she is a free lance writer, poet, journalist, zinester, photographer, multi-media performer, and outlaw midwife.
She has dedicated her body and life to stopping by any means necessary and possible the violence (whether it be state, military, communitarian, medical, domestic, etc.) that threatens our survival on this earth and to co-creating with you revolutionary, liberatory communities.
LeAnna - Blogger Profile - Posts
I am a midwifery student who will be attending Bastyr this fall for the MS in Midwifery program. I have two years experience as an assistant/apprentice for a home birth midwife in a very rural setting. I am excited to expand my midwifery skills and knowledge.
Laurel - Blogger Profile - Posts
I have a profound interest in women?s health across the lifespan and am dedicated to participating in work focused on studying and exploring, from multiple perspectives, what it means to be a woman, how woman is socially constructed and broken down, and what roles and societal position women and the female body play in our society. I became interested in birth specifically based on research that I uncovered during research for my senior capstone project; how our society frames natural bodily functions (menses, menstruation, pregnancy, birth, breast milk production, menopause) and the implications that arise when the female body is defined, objectified, and judged through critical lenses and subjective social frameworks This research ultimately led me to becoming a doula. I have been a Doula, supporting women, children, partners, and families, for the past 3 years. Last year I began a certified professional midwifery program, but soon realized that I desired the possibility to offer a broader spectrum of care to a larger population. Another driving force was the need there is for tenacious people focused on change to work within the medical system to encourage a more mainstream midwifery philosophy- that I believe every scope of practice could benefit from. So I now find myself here, at Columbia, pursuing my midwifery aspirations from a new angle with the intention of also completing a dual degree in public health.
Some of my favorite topics:
Breastfeeding!
Self-efficacy enhancement!
Partner/support person involvement in the birth process!
The fact that we do not keep accurate medical statistics on women, babies, and birth practices which makes it hard to determine and research ‘best practices’
damidwif - Posts
i tried nursing first. i could have made it work, but in the end, it didn't. nursing was the ultimate obstruction to becoming a midwife. this needs to change. i'm in a midwifery education program somewhere in the united states. finally. just waiting to see if this is the midwifery for which i've been longing. let's see.
DyAnna - Blogger Profile - Posts
I am a traditional midwife apprentice and student studying in Utah with as many preceptors as I can get my hands on. I have been a doula and childbirth educator for the past 8 years in several states and cities. After a while there is only so much you can do in the education and support field before I felt that it was time I starting affecting positive change by growing into the midwife role. I have had four very different births with four very different midwives giving me an interesting perspective on the role and life of a midwife. My passions are protecting and healing from trauma in birth, especially in the homebirth setting, and children at birth.
