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Five years is a long time.

It has been five years since I started Local Care Midwifery, a midwife owned and operated small business and a private health care practice. In 2009, I was the only licensed midwife in the Capital District offering planned home birth. At the time, Local Care Midwifery (LCM) was also the only midwife owned practice in the immediate area. While such practices existed in New York State, the closest were in Hudson and New Paltz. There were none in the Albany, NY area.

Since 2009, LCM has offered Well Woman care and Planned Home Birth services to woman and families of the Capital District. LCM has been busy, appreciated and thriving since our doors opened. We provide a model of care and services that women want.

Since LCM began, five other practices offering Planned Home Birth Services have sprung up: Blessingway Midwifery, Family Life Center of Albany, HeartSpace Midwifery, Safe Passage Midwifery, and Sage Femme Midwifery.

In those same five years, two other midwifery practices have opened in this area as well, Capital Region Midwifery in Troy and Joanne Steele’s practice in Cambridge, NY.

Now, in 2014, there are six midwifery practices in NY’s Capital District that offer Planned Home Birth Services. And there are now a total of eight midwifery owned and operated practices in our area. From none to eight, that is a lot of change in five years!

When I moved to Troy, NY in 1999, I wondered where the home birth midwives were. When I asked, I was immediately shushed: home birth was happening in this area but it was a clandestine affair.

Now, in 2014, there are Facebook groups, open houses, information meetings at the Coop, even listings on insurance company’s websites listing midwifery and/or Planned Home Birth options.

From “Shhh!” to open information and access, that is a lot of change in five years!

 

Michelle
May all babies be born into loving hands