10/08/2025
The midwives who attend births at Bellingham Birth Center are fully trained, licensed and certified to provide full-spectrum maternity care, from comprehensive prenatal visits and lab work, to labor support, emergency response, postpartum care, and newborn screenings.
In order to sit for the state licensing exam in WA, a person needs to have graduated from a midwifery program which is 3 years of schooling (after more than a year of pre-med type prerequisites). Midwives in WA attend a minimum of 100 births before becoming licensed, among many other requirements.
They’re trained in evidence-based clinical skills and also in the art of holding space. They carry medications, know when to act, and also know how to support the unfolding of a person’s birth without rushing the process unnecessarily.
Having been formally trained and attended hundreds if not thousands of births in their practices, our midwives know what normal labor looks like ~ even if it is long or if there is a pause in the “progress” at a certain point. They know when to sit on their hands and watch and wait a little longer. They also know the signs to look for that may indicate that an abnormal labor pattern is developing.
Not every birth can happen without medical intervention, and a small percentage of our clients (~4%) do need a cesarean in order to have a healthy baby. When this happens, it is only after we have tried all our tricks, and then the hospital staff has tried all their tricks, and still the baby is not coming.
Generally, this looks very different than how the media portrays birth. How it actually looks is, after many hours of very little or no change, eventually a decision is reached and agreed upon by all, and a sweet baby is born by cesarean in a calm and unrushed manner.
Choosing a midwife is choosing to have the best of both worlds. It is care that’s grounded both in science and in compassion, both in patience and in action when required.
