Our Philosophy

As a midwife I am aligned with the values put forth in
Carla Hartley's Trust Birth Initiative and want to share them here:

WHAT WE BELIEVE:

• The decisions that women make concerning their birth should be based on the truth rather than fears and misconceptions.
• Every woman deserves the right to hear the truth about birth.
  
• Women know how to give birth. They may not realize that they do, but they do.
• Birth is a natural function of life.
  
• Our bodies were designed to give birth just as they were designed to conceive and grow a baby.
  
• Our bodies know how to finish what they began.
  
• Birth should not be a time in a woman's life when she has to FIGHT for anything.
• Birth should not be a battlefield.
  
• Birth is not normally a medical event and rarely needs any medical interference.
  
• Birth belongs to women and not to their birth attendant.
  
• We don't want to promote any birth attendant as being more essential to the process than the woman giving birth.
  
• We don't want to promote any place as being safer for birth than the woman's home.
  
• We don't lie to women about what may or may not happen if they follow a formula or a plan.
• If supporting a woman's choices is really our goal then we have to tell her the truth about the limitation of her choices once she enters a hospital.
  
• We tell the truth: Interference with birth starts the minute she leaves her home and the minute she is in the hospital she is no longer in charge.
  
• Hospitals offer no measure of safety for birth for the average woman and, in fact, increase the chances of many potential complications.
  
• The Trust Birth Initiative is not ANTI-hospital as much as we are pro-TRUTH..
  
• Interfering with birth increases risks regardless of where the birth takes place.
  
• Women and their babies are being abused in the name of safety.
  
• There are too many surgical births, too many epidurals, too many
  episiotomies, too many inductions, too much monitoring and managing.
  
• Women are being scared and bullied and manipulated.
  
• Women are being robbed experience of giving birth; babies are being robbed of a peaceful environment in which to be born.

This is what we believe.