At Interior Women’s Health, we believe that women should have every right to choose how their pregnancy and childbirth experience will play out. That includes offering midwife services to those seeking a supportive, nontraditional, and more natural approach to pregnancy and delivery.
Our practice includes highly skilled, board-certified physicians specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, family nurse practitioners, and certified nurse midwives. This ensures that the women who entrust us with their care have access to whatever level of care they need to thrive at any phase of life.
If you’re curious about the role a midwife might play in your journey to parenthood, we’re happy to offer some information to help you better understand your choices.
A midwife is a trained medical professional who focuses on supporting women through the pregnancy and delivery process. Midwives are also trained to provide postpartum care to help you move through the weeks and months after giving birth.
At Interior Women’s Health, our midwives are all certified nurses with a four-year nursing degree and a Master's degree in nurse-midwifery. Their training includes work in women’s health, pregnancy, labor and delivery, and primary care.
Midwives are not medical doctors, and there are limits to the services they can provide. At Interior Women’s Health, we believe that pregnancy is a normal human process and should not be treated as an illness. Midwives are an excellent fit for women who have a low-risk pregnancy and want a more natural approach to labor and delivery.
While all of the providers at Interior Women’s Health are focused on delivering highly personalized, compassionate care, midwives are especially sensitive to an expectant mother’s desire to move through pregnancy in as natural a manner as possible.
Research shows that women who work with midwives are less likely to experience obstetric interventions or cesarean births than those who choose an obstetrician. However, this could be due to the fact that midwives only manage low-risk pregnancies that are less likely to need more invasive services.
Midwives often have more time to meet with expectant mothers. This is important for women who want to create in-depth birth plans or who have questions about matters like prenatal exercise, nutrition, and alternative birthing methods.
Most importantly, at Interior Women’s Health, you don’t have to make an “either/or” choice when it comes to your obstetrics care. We follow a collaborative model of practice, so if you’re working with a midwife and a more complex complication arises, you have immediate access to an obstetrician who can step in and manage your care.
We’ve built a thriving practice on the foundational belief that women should be respected, honored, and heard. All of our women’s health services are personalized, and choice is central.
Whatever path you choose toward welcoming a new baby, we are here to guide and support you from start to finish. If midwifery is of interest to you, we welcome you to schedule a face-to-face visit with one of our outstanding nurse-midwife practitioners.
Booking that appointment is as easy as a quick phone call. Interior Women’s Health also offers online booking as a fast and convenient way to review appointment times and schedule visits to our comfortable office in Fairbanks, Alaska.
