Your Salt Lake City Birth Options with a Midwife

Considering Salt Lake City midwifery care? Your choice of birth location and provider can have a huge effect on your birth. Here’s why:

We all want to have a feeling of control when it comes to birth. Heck, we want to feel in control all the time in our lives! But I’ll let you know something - there is a heck of a lot in birth that we can’t control. Birth is one of the most incredible, fascinating, powerful, and life-changing things that a person can experience. And with all that comes the fact that birth sometimes has twists and turns that we can’t plan for, and there will come a time in every birth where you will have to release control. 

Setting yourself up from the get-go with a birth team and birth location that is going to support your desires and help you have a positive birth experience is one of the (few?) things you can control.

As you’re preparing to choose your pregnancy care provider, or considering a change of providers, ask yourself these questions:

• Do you feel comfortable with your provider? 
• Do they give you all the time you need to ask questions and process fears during your appointments, or do you feel rushed?
• Is your provider easy to contact if you have a question or need something, or do you have to jump through hoops to get them on the phone?
• Does your provider enthusiastically support your birth preferences, or do they reluctantly tolerate them? 
• Does your provider encourage you to have a doula and see the value in having that support?
• Have you heard your provider say things like

  • “we don’t really do that here”
  • “we’ll see how that goes”
  • “you don’t really know what you want, this is your first birth,” etc? 

Giving birth at a Salt Lake City hospital

Something to know about having your baby in a hospital is that there’s a chance that the provider you’ve been seeing throughout your pregnancy will not actually be the one at your birth (because of being off call, not on shift that day, on vacation, sick, etc).

In fact, in a survey we did of folks who had recently had their babies in Salt Lake City hospitals, over half of them did NOT have their preferred provider at their birth. The most common reason was that their provider wasn’t scheduled to work that day. 

Salt Lake City birth centers

If you’re interested in exploring your options outside of a traditional hospital birth with an OB/GYN, working with a midwife at a birth center can be a really good choice for people who:

• Are considered “low risk” in their pregnancy
• Would like to know exactly who will be at their birth and have a deeper personal relationship with their provider
• Would like to give birth in a low-pressure, home-like environment 
• Are planning to use non-pharmacological techniques to manage discomfort in labor (epidurals aren’t available at birth centers or home births)

Our favorite birth centers in Salt Lake City are:

• Wasatch Midwifery
• Birth Journey Midwifery
• Innate Midwifery

(All of these birth centers also offer home birth services)

Salt Lake City home birth

Thinking about having your baby in a home birth in Salt Lake City? You’re not alone. More families here are choosing home birth for a calm, personalized experience. With the right team and support, it can be a safe and empowering option.

There are so many amazing home birth midwives in Salt Lake City. Some of our favorites include:

• Teryl Stay & Kalli Chasson, Stay Awhile Midwife
• Gloria Moore, Bearth Holistic Midwifery
• Christine Larson, Olive Branch Midwifery
• Sarah Fairlight, Fairlight Midwifery