Midwifery at GWU

[Anonymous]

I just had an unmedicated VBAC with Whitney a week ago. She has been a stellar midwife from the time I started with her practice through my pospartum period. She gave me every opportunity to have the trial of labor I wanted, even through a long labor including 4 hours of pushing. In another hospital with an OB/GYN, I'm sure I would've ended up with a C-section. In my view, Whitney is a health care hero for women in the DC area. I cannot recommend her strongly enough. The best health care experience I have ever had! She is able to balance using the medical technology available to her in the hospital setting with the traditional, supportive philosophy of the midwifery model of care. That way, you get the very best of both worlds. Love her!

[Anonymous]

I'm curious about peoples' impressions of Marcia. I am with Wisdom Midwifery and due very soon, and haven't yet met Marcia. I notice that a few earlier posters said "I met Nora and Marcia and love Nora," without mentioning what they thought of Marcia. I trust Whitney and Laura's judgment in hiring additional colleagues so I'm sure she's well-qualified and experienced, but I'd be interested to know how she comes across personality-wise (in case I go into labor and she's there and I haven't met her yet!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, of course, but to have accurate comparison statistics, midwives should not get to just discount every women that they transfer over to OB care either during pregnancy or for an induction or other situation which becomes high risk. It's like the homebirth midwives who transfer a dying baby to the hospital, and then fail to count that dead baby in their own statistics. It's easy for a midwife to brag "I have a 3% c/s rate" when they are only including a small subset of their patients. A 3% c/s rate is pretty much unheard of these days. Even homebirth midwives, who tend to have the absolute lowest c/s rates possible, hover more around a 5-6% rate. I really like Whitney Pinger and her practice; it's just that I am curious about how those numbers are being calculated.

You, my dear have officially drank the kool aid.
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I've worked with Whitney at WHC before and she was considered quite liberal, so it wouldn't surprise me if she became a little bit more medicalized since she's starting a new practice. This is her first year and she probably has some type of trial period and/or more eyes on her than she's used to.

As long as the medicalization ends in the prenatal office and she promotes a natural birth in L and D, then it's fine by me.

[Anonymous]

I know wisdom has induced labor for medical reasons - 30+ hours of ROM, or pre-e (my case). In my case, I went into labor before needing the induction, but since we were racing The advance of pre-e, we did use pitocin. I am part of her 3%, and I wanted to defend the practice. Wisdom will transfer you to the obs for complications - gestational diabetes being the one that is rhe most common. I had no pregnancy complications outside of a large baby until the pre-e developed at 39w3d. Even at that point, in the hospital, the care was split - the obs were in charge of the pre-e, and the midwives were in charge of the obstetric care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, of course, but to have accurate comparison statistics, midwives should not get to just discount every women that they transfer over to OB care either during pregnancy or for an induction or other situation which becomes high risk. It's like the homebirth midwives who transfer a dying baby to the hospital, and then fail to count that dead baby in their own statistics. It's easy for a midwife to brag "I have a 3% c/s rate" when they are only including a small subset of their patients. A 3% c/s rate is pretty much unheard of these days. Even homebirth midwives, who tend to have the absolute lowest c/s rates possible, hover more around a 5-6% rate. I really like Whitney Pinger and her practice; it's just that I am curious about how those numbers are being calculated.

You, my dear have officially drank the kool aid.
-------------------------------------------------------------
I've worked with Whitney at WHC before and she was considered quite liberal, so it wouldn't surprise me if she became a little bit more medicalized since she's starting a new practice. This is her first year and she probably has some type of trial period and/or more eyes on her than she's used to.

As long as the medicalization ends in the prenatal office and she promotes a natural birth in L and D, then it's fine by me.

This is confusing to me. What Kool Aid are you talking about?

[Anonymous]

Also - re: induction rates - it is commonly discussed on these boards that many women who are induced (b/c they have not gone into labor on their own by 40/41+ weels), need additional interventions, which can lead to c-sections. Wisdom will let women go beyond 41 and even 42 weeks if everything else looks good, so induction rates are lower and c/s rates are lower without counting in any other factors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wisdom will transfer you to the obs for complications - gestational diabetes being the one that is rhe most common.

Do they automatically transfer a patient to the OBs for any GD or just uncontrolled GD?

[Anonymous]

To PP - I am pretty sure GD = automatic transfer. At least this is the way Whitney described it to me. That is why she is so strict about her diet - she truly believes it helps prevent GD.

[Anonymous]

I've had appointments with Whitney and Laura, and Marsha sat in on my appointment with Whitney on her first day. So far I have no complaints about any of the midwives - I think each has a slightly different approach, just because they have different personalities, but I've found them all to be supportive and caring. As for Whitney pushing tests, I've found the opposite to be true. She's left it completely up to me whether I want to do this test or that test, not pushing me one way or the other at all, but happy to answer any of my questions.

[Anonymous]

08:43

'Drinking the kool-aid' is an expression. I forgot the type of crowd I was dealing with on this board...lol. It's a little hard to translate, but it means you've bought into the hype or propaganda.

[Anonymous]

Note - drinking Kool-aid is strickly forbidden if you area patient of Whitney Pinger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wisdom will transfer you to the obs for complications - gestational diabetes being the one that is rhe most common.

Do they automatically transfer a patient to the OBs for any GD or just uncontrolled GD?

Any gd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:08:43

'Drinking the kool-aid' is an expression. I forgot the type of crowd I was dealing with on this board...lol. It's a little hard to translate, but it means you've bought into the hype or propaganda.

Oh geeeeez, I know the expression. What I'm wondering is what you think my post demonstrated - that I don't believe midwives can have a high c/s rate? My whole point was that it seems that Wisdoms self-proclaimed 3% rate seems suspiciously low.

[Anonymous]

I think Kool-aid poster's position is that if you find such a low c-section rate suspicious, then you are buying into an "OB medical establishment" party-line that c-section is necessary and/or adviseable in a greater number of cases than Kool-aid poster believes it to be.

I don't know... the truth is usually somewhere in the middle.

[Anonymous]

Update to my own prior post asking about Marsha (not spelled Marcia, it turns out). For anyone else who's a Wisdom Midwifery patient but hasn't met her yet, I had an appointment with her and found her very friendly and patient. I didn't have many questions but she asked me lots of questions and we had a good chat about my work schedule, sleeping, etc. So, that was reassuring!