Hello everyone!
I just have a quick question for those who have started or completed the MTB Program. At the moment, I'm aspiring to Assist midwives. I'm planning to take the Midwife Assistant workshop at The Farm next year, but was wondering if this program would be beneficial as well. Would it be overkill to take this midwifery course when I only plan to Assist?

I am sure it will be. She has a good reputation.

I don't think it will be overkill. I would want to be the best MWA I could.

Remember that how you choose to work (i.e. with a midwife) is still your choice, and you never know when your extra knowledge and skills might become useful, even when "just an assistant"

Thank you for you input, ladies! Very good point, it would beneficial to take in as much information as I can. Are any of you MWAs?

I am! I don't have any formal training/certification though, I was trained by a CNM specifically for homebirths and now I work at a freestanding birth center as a midwife's assistant / birth assistant.

I too want to attend the midwife's assistant seminar at The Farm but I would need to save up about 2k for it :/

I would contact some midwive's to see if they need any help. You can offer your services in return for some teaching from them directly!

Oh wow, that's pretty awesome! You didn't have any formal training, but were you a Doula or somehow in the Birth community before the CNM trained you? I had thought that most Homebirth midwives would prefer someone with a little experience, so that is really cool. I may do at least a little bit of self-study, and then the Workshop before approaching local Midwives. I may save the MTB program for when I actually do want to pursue midwifery. I'm still deciding!
I'm trying to get to the Farm in March 2013, and it helps that I only live 2 hours away from the Farm!

tati121, if you don't mind, I would love to hear some of your responsibilities as a MWA. I'm sure Midwives differ in what they let or want their MWAs do, but I would love to hear either way! :-)

I had absolutely no experience within the birthing community before I started working for the CNM. She interviewed a bunch of people, RN's included, and she felt that because I was a clean slate and I was pre-med that I would be a great candidate for a potential assistant since she would teach me things her way and not have it conflict with past teaching I may have received.

As a MWA I was responsible for keeping our birth kit stocked and up to date with all of our birth supplies, I was on-call just like she was when we had momma's reach the 37w mark. When we arrived to our client's home the first thing I did was FHT's and then the CNM would do the rest of momma's vitals. I was in charge of all FHT's for the course of the L&D (q30min before transition & q15min after dilation) and also chart the progress. I did not do VE's or membrane sweeps or anything that would require a sterile space (though I always wore non-sterile gloves as a universal precaution since I was in charge of changing chux.) During the time that momma was approaching transition I was basically her doula: suggesting position changes, preparing food and/or beverages for her, setting up the different areas to labor (pool, bed, couch, floor, etc). While momma was pushing I provided emotional and physical support for her and her partner in order to keep her grounded (no pain med's at homebirths!) and concentrated at the task at hand. During the actual delivery, I took off my doula hat and put on my MWA hat once again in preparation for cleaning baby's airways (if needed), tactile stim. while the CNM checked for bleeding, instrument preparation for cord clamping (delayed of course), keeping the receiving blankets warm, having O2 handy (just in case mom or baby needed a blow-by for increased O2 sat.), and of course being aware of the time at which both the baby and placenta came.

Once mom and baby are snuggling and the cord has been cut, I do a quick tidy up of the general area and prepare their bed for the CNM to check for any tears and prepare the suturing equipment should she need to place any stiches. Then most of our momma's would take a quick shower to get rid of all the childbirth muck during which time we cleaned up the area and got it ready for mom to crawl into bed with her baby and her partner. I would also make mom her "postpartum diapers" which usually consisted of adult depends with a witch hazel pad and/or perineal cold pack. The CNM would then do a full set of mom and baby vitals and encourage some breast feeding as well. The newborn check was usually one of the last things we did; we would weigh and measure baby, check babinski and moro reflexes, baby's palate, spinal formation, rooting reflex - the whole 9 yards.

At the very end when mom and baby were good and we had collected all of our supplies and tidied everything up we would head home! And if it was a decent time (not 4am or something) we would usually go out and grab a bite to eat to recap on the birth.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

As a MWA in a freestanding birth center, I do all of the aforementioned things in addition to mom and baby vitals (blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, temperature, & fundal check (location and firmness)).

Even though I am not a certified doula I still offer my services on a freelance basis as a doula and I explain to my client where my birthing experience comes from and that I am not certified. I have yet to have a client turn me away based solely on the fact that I haven't taken a doula class.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask me any other questions

Wow, thank you so very much, that was immensely helpful! I think it goes without asking that you love your job :-)
And you know what? Cert or no Cert, you are a Doula. What a great way to come into Doula work, as well. I do have another question; Is this your only means of income? How busy are you in any given month?
Thank you for offering to answer my questions, I will have more soon!

You're very welcome! I absolutely do love my job and I'm grateful that I answered her ad or else I'd probably still be pre-med! Sometimes I get shit from other doulas who don't feel that I qualify as a doula since I have no certification but I don't care. I never portray myself to anyone as a CERTIFIED doula, I actually much prefer the term Professional Childbirth Attendant anyway!

I stopped working for the CNM a few months back and for the last few months or so I did non-birthing related work. I started working at the freestanding birth center last month and though they said it usually takes 7-10 births for a trainee to move up to being a full-fledged Birth Assistant, I moved up after only 2 births! Thankfully all my experience paid off! And I also take on doula clients so yes, for the last couple of months birth-related work has been my sole source of income. I currently have 1 doula client due in early Aug and I'm interviewing some more mom's to fill up some more of my summer spots and I'm usually on-call a couple of times per week with the birth center. All in all i'm not that busy but I make enough to make ends meet. A typical doula takes on up to 6 or so clients a month but I like to shoot for 1 or 2, 3 at the highest since in addition to being on-call for my personal clients, I'm also on-call at the birth center. A lot of the other Birth Assistants I work with at the birth center are doulas and they also take on only a handful of clients per month.

Thankfully because of my experience and because of the clientele demographic in NYC, 1-3 clients/month is enough to make ends meet not including my hourly wage at the birth center.

I do however plan on taking the doula and midwife's assistant courses that Childbirth International has to offer as I eventually want to offer monitrice services as well since that's basically what I am at the birth center.

Let me know if you have any more questions!

Nice! And thank you, again. Do you have any long-term plans to be a full-fledged Midwife? Or are you happy with being MWA/Monitrice?

I love hearing about people who love and are enthusiastic about their occupations. Congrats on being able to move up so quickly!

If there are any Doulas giving you flack about not being "Certified" then I must say that is disappointing. Many Doulas are not certified (I'm not, and don't plan to), but still hold a good standard for themselves and are indeed still quite knowledgeable about Childbirth and Labor Support. I think it's very neat the way that you've come to Birth and Doula work. There isn't just one way to do it, and I'm sure you're delightful

There aren't any Freestand BCs here. The CPMs here are practicing without a License, but continue to do so in an effort to give women more options (they'd have to go across the bridge to the next State to be cared for by a CNM). It isn't strictly regulated here, as some CPMs advertise and list themselves openly. I may contact some CPMs here soon, or after the workshop, and forge ahead. Thank you so much for all of the information. I couldn't really find a good, detailed description of the varied duties of MWAs anywhere else.

hahaha ^^ This is my response, I had forgotten to log in before submitting it!

No problem! I do plan on becoming a CNM and I will be starting my nursing pre-requisites hopefully this Fall (finances permitting) but I might have to wait until Jan though...

Before I take any doula or MWA courses anywhere I plan on becoming BLS & NRP (basic life support & neonatal resuscitation program) certified since those are 2 biggies when working in this field. Then I will take whatever course I feel would supplement what I already know since I do have plenty of experience.

And I totally agree, there isn't just ONE way to become a childbirth attendant in whichever capacity suits you and reflects your training and skills. It's such a shame that it's people within the birthing community that make such a to do about it. If I was presenting myself as a doula who IS certified and went on to lie about my certification that's one thing, but I've never done that.

You can read about my plans regarding becoming a CNM in the CPM v. CNM thread since I posted there a few days ago about my career intentions.

Toodles!

- tatiana

Hey Demetria, I have a question about the Birth Arts MWA/Monitrice program; is there a payment plan available, or would I need to pay the full fee at the beginning? TIA


Thank you, Tatiana, I will check out that thread soon. Glad to hear about your future plans, good luck with everything! Yeah, I was looking into NRT and CPR, and agree that those are musts. They offer NRT at the Farm so maybe I'll take it in conjunction with the Workshop.

Yay!

^^ Oops, did it again! Forgot to log in so it showed my response as "Guest".