Midwifery Spotlight 

Aug 2014

 

Franciscan Women’s Health Associates is proud to have the largest certified nurse midwife practice in the South Puget Sound, with more than 34 years of experience delivering at St Joseph Medical Center. We provide the full spectrum of midwifery care, serving an ethnically diverse group of women in our several locations throughout Pierce and (since Spring 2014) King County. In addition to the clinical services we provide, our practice provides outreach at a number of local community events, fairs and festivals, and provides pregnancy and delivery support for women at the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Purdy, Washington.

 

At St. Joseph Medical Center, we take pride in the fact that nearly 40% of our total vaginal deliveries are attended by CNM’s. For more than a decade, we’ve offered our patients the option of tub laboring and waterbirth, as each private labor and delivery room is equipped with a soaker tub.

In the spring of 2014, we launched our first Centering Pregnancy® program with great success. With 8 groups currently in progress, we aim to launch the program at another Franciscan clinic starting in February 2015. We are also excited to have our first group of ten women delivering this month and look forward to the first of many postpartum parties.

 

With a growing demand for midwifery services in the Pacific Northwest, we are excited about our expansion of care at two clinics in King County, conveniently located near our St. Francis Family Birth Center in Federal Way and Highline Family Childbirth Center in Burien. We also plan to expand our midwifery program to Enumclaw, near our St. Elizabeth Family Birth Center within the next year.