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Thrive Midwives LLC

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Eden Prairie, MN
Thrive Midwives LLC

Nurse-midwifery practice, providing integrative prenatal, home birth, primary, and gyn care.

Thrive is a nurse-midwife owned full scope service, providing well body, basic primary, gynecologic, prenatal, and home birth services. Kari Michalski APRN CNM is excited to provide you with evidence based, personalized care.

03/19/2026

Ooooooh is this interesting! New article in the journal Birth (link below) entitled "Personal Birth Experiences and Clinician Attitudes About Cesarean Birth: A Cross-Sectional Study With Female Labor and Delivery Unit Staff" highlights a factor that can have a very real influence on people needing or choosing hospital care for their birth. The personal birth experiences of those on your birth team (nurse, physician, and/or midwife) "are associated with their attitudes about clinical practice." If they themselves have only had a cesarean in the past, their support for best practices to reduce cesarean birth is lower, they are more likely to overestimate cesarean safety, and have greater fears around vaginal birth.

This finding circles back to my prior posts about the important role that hospital culture plays in the degree to which your care team may practice in an evidence based manner. Bias TOWARDS cesarean section can change the team's "tolerance" for a slow labor or a baby who is "misbehaving" according to the fetal monitor. It will likely change the language they use when discussing a potential surgical birth. While cesareans are very necessary in some instances, being that around 33% of all births in our nation are now surgical, what do you think the likelihood is that someone on your hospital birth team carries bias that can have a direct impact on your birth journey?

This is one of the many reasons I shifted into home birth. Not because I wanted to make my clients' stories read like mine (ending in a vaginal birth). But rather that I am familiar with the complex layers of hospital power structures and cultures, and the degree to which they can have a detrimental impact on practice...no matter what a birth family wants or prefers.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/birt.70062?campaign=wolearlyview

03/17/2026

In like a lamb and out like a lion?! Just a heads up to pregnant folks and parents of babes

03/15/2026

If you don't know by now, many of my posts arise out of irritation with conventional health care. Today is no exception. Over the last year I've seen a resurgence of unnecessary testing, maternal-fetal medicine consultations, and imaging being recommended in pregnancy that drive up costs—especially for patients with high-deductible plans. Here’s a tidbit worth knowing.

It is not evidence-based to offer both an NT (nuchal translucency ultrasound) and an NIPT (non-invasive prenatal screening blood test).

NIPT is ~99% sensitive for screening Trisomy 21/Down syndrome, does not require a visit to maternal-fetal medicine or genetic counseling, is covered by most major insurers, and can be drawn with your initial prenatal labs. If someone has to self-pay, it’s $199 with my lab.

An NT is 60–80% sensitive with a 5% false-positive rate. In other words, it doesn’t come close to the accuracy of NIPT. Once NIPT became widely available, routine NT screening largely fell out of favor more than a decade ago.

Yet I’m seeing a resurgence of the NT + NIPT combo in large health systems. Why? My suspicion: it generates revenue for MFM departments.

What gets billed?
• hospital facility fee
• dating ultrasound
• genetic counseling visit
• perinatologist interpretation
• the blood test

Total charges to insurance often land between $1,300–$2,300.

While I try not to stoke skepticism toward conventional medicine, patients deserve to know when recommendations are evidence-based—and when they may simply pad a system’s bottom line.

Take-home: work with a provider who understands the realities of corporate healthcare, practices evidence-based medicine, and doesn’t profit from the tests they recommend. Ya welcome!

03/13/2026

Well said. And accurate.

03/12/2026

I laud this physician for the weekly work. She does on social media, trying to set the record straight around what is happening with our federal government and public policy. Follow her.

03/11/2026

Hear it: exercise, fiber intake, decrease intake of processed foods and sugar, move ya body. Over and over. It’s that impactful…and Americans in general are falling short. So many of my clients are eyeballs deep into supplements, the newest wellness product, conspiracy theories around health and science, vaccine hesitant. It’s not that deep. Keep health simple and evidence based. No quick fixes or weekly Chiro adjustments needed. No need to spend $$$ to be healthy. The basics are in reach.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVrU_uBEVWS/?igsh=MWZhazNwemtodW9neQ==

03/10/2026

Well said. I support this vaccine though don’t carry it for newborns simply because the majority of my families would prefer to start this at one month of age.

03/03/2026

Amongst other true pearls of wisdom regarding skin and wound care, Dr. Sam Ellis reiterates in the video link below what I tell pregnant people weekly. Products sold to prevent stretch marks DO NOT WORK. Full stop. Just use a basic moisturizer like Cetaphil or Cerave cream (in the tub) if you're belly skin is itchy or irritated. Now there are things you can do after birth to lighten and improve the appearance of those stretch marks, one of which requires a prescription. So make a virtual appt with me to get the dirt, even if I didn't catch your babe. And stop: hydrogen peroxide and Neosporin on wounds, leaving wounds and scabs "open to dry," blackhead nose strips, etc. Stock: silicone scar tape/strips/sticks, Vaseline or Aquaphor, hypochlorous acid spray cleanse fresh wounds, and great UPF 50++++ sunscreen.

Photo credit: the most gorgeous belly on the planet, captured by Raven Ivory, and me with my "per the usual resting B face" 😜
https://youtu.be/f6YrrwvYPIE?si=925REXVRyuRBZZi5

02/04/2026

Raising funds ($1000) for a Spanish speaking doula to work with a client who cannot afford that layer of care and is one of thousands of pregnant folks who cannot leave their homes safely or easily right now. Spanish speaking interpreters and doulas are being disproportionately tapped right now to help in this crisis, and it is so important that their work is at least partially funded. If you are interested in supporting these endeavors Venmo me -Michalski. If there is an overage, I'll be able to at least pay the interpreters who have been angels at my side for weeks, for mileage and a perhaps a gift card. Thank you for your support and generosity in advance!

Photo courtesy of a birth family I honor and miss so much...captured so beautifully by

01/22/2026

RSV season in Midwest typically wraps down in April but can persist until May. If you don’t choose to receive the RSV vaccine in pregnancy and your babe is born during RSV season, please consider bringing your kiddos to a primary care provider (family med, peds) and asking that your baby receive Beyfortis RSV antibody shot. This is particularly important if you have other kiddos in the household who go to school, preschool, daycare.

01/07/2026

Dear Ericca, my currently neglected social media guru...I know this isn't a pic of a juicy baby or triumphant birth. But I'm just trying to keep my clients from rolling their eyes when I say, again, "Cervical cancer screening continues to change, and this how it applies to you."

The updated screening guidelines are in the photo, courtesy of Jama Network. New, very welcome change: people at average risk between 30-65 years old can now SELF-COLLECT a vaginal swab in clinic for HRHPV (high risk human papilloma virus, the most common cause of cervical cancer) screening every 5 years. No speculum, no exam of your perineum/vulva/vagina/cervix unless you want/need that exam (TBH, a skin exam can be super handy and leads to great conversations around vulvar skin care, l**e, pelvic floor strength, what's normal, p***s v Barbie smooth). Thrive now stocks the self-collection kits. Yesssssssssss! I'm so excited to push my speculae a little further to the back of the exam drawer, bringing you more modern pelvic care.

01/06/2026

Came across an email from one of my favorite sauna/cold plunge locales today. They shared great tidbits about how to cold plunge and regulate your breath. And then, BAM! Nailed why breath is key to moving through the 40-50 degree experience in a way that makes it OK. And more than OK, navigating your breath makes the experience therapeutic. How you breathe during labor is no different my lovelies.

"As you enter the plunge, your body wants to speed up. Try instead to slow everything down. Take a controlled inhale, then prolong your exhale to 8–10 seconds and try not to hold your breath. Slowing your breathing tells your nervous system that you're safe and that this is intentional. Once your body gets that message, the "panic" fades and the cold becomes manageable."

At the beginning of a surge or contraction, your heart rate and blood pressure increase, and the instinct may be to do EVERYTHING to wiggle out of the intensity. But consider instead breathing to down regulate your nervous system. Welcome it with a controlled inhale through your nose and settle in, relinquishing into the discomfort and wild energy. Then stretch your exhale out for 8-10 seconds, pursing your lips like blowing out a candle to slow yourself down...or wide mouthed, slack jawed, "haaaaaaaaaaaa." Then repeat this, over and over. Using your breath is one way to reassure your body that birth is safe, you are safe.

While I dislike coaching a laboring person into a one-size-fits-all formula, one thing I see come up recurrently is this. If you cannot use your breath strategically during labor. If you are huffing and puffing quickly to get above the intensity, you are telling your body that you are unsafe. That disrupts oxytocin release from your brain, dehydrates you, hastens exhaustion. It also decreases fetal oxygenation, resulting in more meconium stained fluid and fetal intolerance of the stresses of labor.

Start a daily meditation practice focused on the breath early in pregnancy. Learn to sit still. It is the single most important practice to prepare for the wild ride that's labor.

Pic courtesy of Ms. Yakovleva, at a sauna+cold plunge event

Address

6600 City West Pkwy
Eden Prairie, MN
55344

Opening Hours

Monday	1pm - 7pm
Tuesday	1pm - 7pm
Thursday	8am - 1pm

Telephone

+17633506909

Website

http://www.thrivemidwives.com/

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