Midwifery Care

What to expect from midwifery care at Kaiser

The nurse-midwives work on labor & delivery and postpartum 24 hours a day, seven days a week – including holidays.

• Not every woman requires an IV, but it may be recommended on a case by case basis for administration of medication, hydration, or preparation for an epidural or as a safety precaution.
• Once the baby’s initial status is assessed, women can walk, utilize a variety of labor positions, or try a warm shower to help labor move along. We encourage you to bring your own “birthing ball”, if you like, and your own music, to set the right atmosphere for you.
• We can monitor the baby intermittently if the baby is tolerating labor well and there are no other complicating factors that require continuous fetal monitoring.
• We routinely use external monitors to assess for fetal heart rate and uterine contractions, but occasionally recommend internal monitors if we want a more accurate reading or we are concerned for baby’s wellbeing.
• We do not do routinely utilize enemas, shave, or perform episiotomies.
• The midwives and nurses work with you during the pushing phase and crowning to ease the baby out gently and minimize perineal tearing.
• When possible, we encourage mothers to reach down and help deliver their babies if they would like. Unless otherwise indicated, the support person will be invited to cut the umbilical cord.
• We place the baby directly on the mother’s abdomen when he/she is born so that mother and baby can maintain skin-to-skin contact.

We strongly recommend childbirth preparation classes to help women and their birth partners understand the natural process of labor and giving birth. Classes also explain coping skills for early labor, when it is too early in the process for most to receive an epidural. In addition, they introduce some of the medical interventions that are sometimes necessary to insure a healthy outcome.