Celebrating National Midwifery Week: Honoring Our Midwives

This National Midwifery Week, we pause to recognize and celebrate the extraordinary midwives who dedicate their lives to supporting families through one of life's most transformative experiences. Your work extends far beyond clinical excellence—it is a calling that touches hearts, changes lives and shapes the very fabric of maternal care.

To Our Midwives: We See You

We see you in the quiet hours of the night, present and steady when labor begins at 2 AM—often just hours after leaving another birth. We see you missing holiday dinners, birthday celebrations, and family gatherings because a mother needs you—and you show up, every time.

We see you staying in the room during labor, offering continuous presence and support even when you could step away. Your calm voice, your knowing hands, your reassuring presence—these are the anchors that help women find their strength when the waves of labor feel overwhelming.

You are a cheerleader when a laboring mother doubts herself, whispering “you can do this” and “you’re doing it” until she believes it too.

You are a shoulder to cry on when test results bring worry, when birth doesn’t go as planned, when postpartum struggles feel too heavy to bear alone, or when life’s challenges intersect with the journey to parenthood.

You are someone to laugh with when the unpredictable, beautiful chaos of birth creates moments that can only be understood by those who’ve been in the room—moments that become stories shared for years to come.

The Impact of Midwifery Care

Your dedication yields measurable results that speak to the power of the midwifery model of care. Research consistently demonstrates that midwifery-led care for low-risk women produces outstanding outcomes:

• High spontaneous vaginal birth rates of approximately 93%, giving families the physiologic births they hope for

• Low cesarean rates around 6%, significantly below the national average, while maintaining excellent safety

• Reduced intervention rates, including lower use of induction, augmentation, and epidural anesthesia—honoring the natural birth process while keeping all options available

• Exceptional safety, with neonatal outcomes comparable to hospital births for similar low-risk populations

• Outstanding satisfaction, with families consistently reporting that they felt respected, heard, and empowered in their care

These numbers represent more than statistics—they represent thousands of families who experienced birth as they hoped: supported, safe, and empowered. This is the legacy of midwifery care.

National Midwifery Week Reminder: Fill Your Own Cup

To our dear midwives, as you pour yourselves out for others day after day, we want to remind you of something essential: you cannot pour from an empty cup.

Your capacity to hold space for others, to remain present through intensity, to offer the emotional and physical support that defines midwifery care—all of this requires that you also receive care. It requires rest, nourishment, joy, connection, and restoration.

Take care of yourself so you can continue this sacred work. Set boundaries that protect your wellbeing. Accept support when it’s offered. Acknowledge when you need to step back and recharge. Fill your own cup—not out of selfishness, but out of understanding that your sustainability matters, your health matters, and your wholeness matters.

The families you serve need you to be well. But more importantly, you deserve to be well, simply because you are valuable and worthy of care.

A Personal Gratitude

I speak not only as someone who works alongside midwives but as someone who has been held by their care. I am deeply grateful for the midwives who were present when each of my children were born—two hospital births and one home birth, each one beautiful in its own way.

I never experienced birth trauma. Each time, everything went well. And while outcomes matter, I also know this: the way I was cared for mattered just as much. The support, the presence, the respect, the gentle guidance—these are the gifts that midwives gave me, and they shaped not only my birth experiences but my confidence as a mother from the very first moments.

I carry gratitude for each midwife who attended me—who made me feel safe, who helped me trust my body, who celebrated with me as I met my babies. That gratitude is woven into my commitment to this work and to ensuring that other families can experience the same quality of care.

The World Needs Midwives

The truth is undeniable: the world would not be the same without midwives. You are guardians of physiologic birth, advocates for informed choice and protectors of the sacred space where new life enters the world. You hold centuries of wisdom in your hands while embracing evidence-based innovation. You honor both the clinical and the spiritual dimensions of birth.

Thank you for all that you do. Thank you for all that you sacrifice. Thank you for showing up, for staying present, for caring deeply and for choosing this path again and again despite its demands.

We see you. We honor you. We are grateful for you.

Happy National Midwifery Week to all the midwives who make our birth center and our community a place where families can experience safe, empowering and deeply supported births.