Midwifery Care

Midwives honor each emerging family’s choices, specializing in normal pregnancy, childbirth and the post-partum. Additional reproductive services, such as preconception counseling, insemination, well woman care, and family planning, are part of many midwives’ scope of practice in California.

We believe that women are strong and capable of carrying, birthing, and nurturing our babies without the need of medical intervention. We regard pregnancy as a healthy expression of fertility, not a disease or medical event. We chose to practice in out-of-hospital settings, keeping homebirth, natural childbirth, and most importantly, vaginal birth alive.

The midwife’s role is to nurture, love, and empower the mother-baby duo, acting as a guardian of safety. At each prenatal, the midwife assesses your wellbeing and checks your blood pressure, dips your urine, measures and touches your belly, and listens to the baby’s heart tones. She speaks to you about your concerns and common complaints, offers advice, listens to you, reaffirms you, and refers to other providers if needed. The client and midwife work in collaboration, focusing care on the mother’s needs and preferences as well as best practices.

The midwife is on-call for your birth between 37 and 42 weeks. During the birth, the midwife checks that you and your baby are doing well and is skilled at providing all sorts of natural remedies to help move things along, such as relaxation techniques, herbs, homeopathy, and water therapy.

Midwives are also trained in emergency care and, should one arise, can provide such care until you and your baby are stable or transfer to a medical provider. In the event that care is transferred, your midwife continues to provide supportive services. You may be able to receive postpartum care from your midwife even if you transfer for the birth.
After the birth of your baby, the midwife will provide postpartum care in your home, visiting you at least five or six times, more if needed. As part of your postpartum care, you will receive breastfeeding assistance.



Equipment at a Home Birth

• Monitoring devices for the baby and mom during labor
• Oxygen for both moms and babies
• Suctioning device
• Suture, birth, and cord supplies
• Special medications for postpartum bleeding and vitamin K
• Baby scale
• IV solution and set-up
• Eye medication for the baby
• Herbs, homeopathics, and other non-invasive remedies and/or tools


We do not carry high-tech equipment nor do we perform vaginal extractions or surgery. We refer to a physician if the birth falls outside the scope of midwifery since we only work with low-risk women at home.

Call: (707) 502-7440 to speak with a midwife from Tree of Life Midwifery Services.

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