Melissa Dean, LM, CPM

Forever grateful for having had Melissa as our midwife.
She was both extremely knowledgeable and excibited a human touch that I had never seen in the world of OB/​GYN. The result? Elated parents and a tear-​free natural delivery (which was very long btw, so odds are that I would have been induced or referred to a c-​section in a different setting). Whether in pre-​natal appointments (in which she took 45′ ea – seriously– to answer all of our questions, refer us to awesome professionals, walk us through all options available, conduct the traditional exams, etc.) or during delivery itself, Melissa and the Casa-​Natal team made a major difference in our baby story. Highly recommend her services.

A day like today a year ago Melissa was there with me helping me with the birth of my first child at home. I am so happy I chose her services.
Before I was pregnant I knew I wanted a water home birth. I started my care with an OB, I mentioned to her about water birth and she was not supportive at all. She was actually trying to scare me! Checking where my incision would be for c-​section. That’s when I decided to start interviewing and start care with a midwife. Melissa was my first and last! After talking to her I knew she was the one. She is very knowledgeable and answered all my questions. She was always there throughout my pregnancy.
My water broke at 4:00AM that’s when I text Melissa. She called me right away and guided me. Her voice is is very calming, she lets you know you can do this. There is a point in labor where you think you won’t make it, and there she was, helping me breath and letting me know it would all be ok. She was also helping my husband and telling him what he could do to make me feel better.
I really recommend Melissa! She made my birth experience a great one despite all the pain. I miss her and will definitely call her if I have another baby!

Melissa has been my midwife for two planned home births, one of which happened at home, and one of which necessitated transferring care to an OB and hospital setting. In both, she inspired confidence, respected my feelings and opinions, offered excellent knowledge and guidance, and overall provided professional, nurturing, effective and wonderful care. I cannot thank Melissa enough for the critical role she has played in the births of my two beautiful sons. Love!

I switched from my OB/​GYN to Melissa halfway through my pregnancy. We started by looking into her birth center then ended up going ahead with a home birth. I am so glad we chose Melissa. I felt secure with her from our very first meeting through to my last follow up appointment. She is confident and caring, knowledgable and empowering, and had a great balance of taking charge and letting me do what I needed to do.
If we are blessed with a second pregnancy in the future, we’ll start the process with Melissa from the beginning!
If these reviews aren’t enough, be sure to look at the reviews that are hidden, and feel free to message me for more thoughts if you’d like!

Melissa is amazing! Our family was on the fence about midwifery and home birth and Melissa totally put us at ease. She is so knowledgeable and laid back. I loved working with her because she made me feel so confident! She was our midwife for both of our sons’ births. Our first was a home birth transfer that would have very likely have ended in a c-​section without her support. Our second was an beautiful, perfect, smooth, home birth that was an experience that I would trade for nothing. Love you Melissa!

Melissa is absolutely amazing! We were so lucky to have her as our doula for the birth of our son a few weeks ago. Her presence all the way through the process — from the first home visit to coming to our house during labor and staying by my side all the way through delivery to our postpartum home visit– was invaluable. She knows so much and is so calming and encouraging– it was essential for me as a first time mom! We sincerely believe Melissa was instrumental in our having precisely the kind of birth we had hoped for. I just can’t say enough good things or recommend her highly enough!

Melissa is an amazing midwife and delivered our second child at our home. We met her through our first midwife and when she retired, we knew exactly who we’d be using for our second: Melissa. She has a way about her that makes trusting her instantly very easy. And with Melissa, our second birth experience was SO much better than our first!
Melissa has such a great energy about her… very confident, calming and just the right mix of taking command and mothering. She’s just solid all around. Melissa is also gracious, as I wasn’t always the best patient… forgetting paperwork, being late to appts or having to reschedule last minute. I’m not sure I’d want to read a review about my side of the arrangement as I wasn’t always the responsible one. ;) But she was and helped us to get all our ducks in a row!
I was on the fence for much of our pregnancy about whether to try a home birth again {our first was a medically necessary transfer}, and brought my concerns to Melissa. I was gun-​shy because of our first experience. Because of that, I worried about Melissa’s CPM credential and newness to it. She was so helpful, positive and honest– just want I needed in order to make my decision. And like the previous reviewer said, she reminded me that she’s not new to birth!
To be honest, my experience with Melissa was much better than my service with a previous CN midwife. And I’m so so glad we went with the home birth. It was an absolutely amazing experience and Melissa and her team were wonderful. Everything went super smoothly and without a hitch! And when we had difficulties during recovery, she was very available via email, phone and text. And with a great source of information and recommendations to give to us.
We definitely plan on using Melissa again, even though she’s a 45 minute drive away. Her service and friendship is more than worth it!

I am so glad that we chose Melissa Dean as our midwife for the home birth of our first child. Melissa has such a calming presence — when she’s in the room you just know that everything is going to go exactly as you’ve planned/​hoped/​dreamed.
We got pregnant shortly after moving to the bay area. And without a lot of friends to turn to for medical practitioner advice, we of course turned to Unilocal.There are only a few midwives with reviews out there on Unilocal — and if you’ll notice this is the first Unilocal review for Melissa’s midwifery services (the other reviews to date were for her doula services). We set up appointments to meet with three different midwives with good reviews (none of which were Melissa) but we just hadn’t met anyone who we thought — «Yes, this is the woman who is going to delivery our child!». Then we attended a «Meet the Doula Night» at Harmony Birth Center in Campbell (also recommended!). One of the doula’s we met there pointed us toward Melissa Dean, and we are oh so thankful for it!
Melissa is relatively new to midwifery in the bay area, but certainly not new to birth. Prior to becoming a midwife, Melissa had been a doula for years and is very well respected in the community. As an example, when we told our doula (different than the doula we met at Harmony) that we were thinking of choosing Melissa as our midwife she got really excited. «Melissa is just awesome, definitely choose her.» Two doula recommendations for Melissa, made us feel pretty good. We also loved that Melissa trained with a hospital-​based midwife whom we thought very highly of. If we’d decided to go the hospital based midwife route, we would have gone with this particular woman. So even though Melissa only got her CPM in 2011 (per
correct me if I’m wrong) we felt very confident with her credentials.
Credentials are great, of course. But really made our decision to choose Melissa was her sparkly personality. She radiates confidence and positive energy. Melissa is the sort of care provider who makes a point to get to know you as a client, woman and mother and to tailor your prenatal appointments and your birth experience to fit you as a person. I did concurrent care with an OB-​GYN (unusual for home birth mommies, I think). My OB-​GYN appointments included 7 minutes of face time with the doc. My typical appointments with Melissa were 45 minutes, and covered a gambit of information — how to prevent tearing, how to bolster my body to better handle the pain associated with delivery, why breast feeding is important, what supplements help prevent spider veins, tips for strengthening your uterus, how often to do kegels, and on and on. But we also talked about «non-​baby» stuff. That might not seem important at first, but when it comes down to delivery who do you want by your side — someone you have a strictly business relationship with? Or someone whom you admire, respect and can count as a friend? I’d choose the later, every time — and that’s who I found in Melissa.
As for delivery, we were blessed with a very textbook and tender experience. I felt really well educated about what to expect going into labor, and confident enough with the whole process that we waited until we’d been in early labor for seven hours before we even called Melissa (it was the middle of the night, and while I certainly could have called her — I felt a-​okay waiting). Melissa arrived right away with her whole bag of midwifery goodies. She and my husband set up the birthing pool (yes ladies, you want one of these even if you don’t plan on delivery in the pool — don’t think your bathtub or shower is a substitute — it’s not) and got all of the other supplies out and organized. Then labor proceeded, and proceeded, and proceeded. There were moments when labor was mentally very hard, but Melissa was like a lighthouse guiding me towards my ultimate goal of a healthy happy unmedicated baby. If you want any details about Melissa’s style during labor, private message me.
After delivery, Melissa did all of the new mother and new baby checks. Then she stayed for several hours to clean our house, make sure breast feeding got off to a good start, and just generally make sure our medical and emotional state of mind were on track. Then she came back for a 24-​hour check, a 48-​hour check, and a 72-​hour phone check-​in. Our beautiful little boy is 15 days old now, and Melissa still hasn’t gotten rid of us. She’s made herself available for consult by email or phone, and I’ve definitely taken advantage of her unbiased advice. She truly was integral part of what made our birth experience so magical, and I cannot recommend her highly enough. But don’t just take my word for it, ask other women in the community what they think of Melissa and they’ll say the same. She’s a treasure!

Melissa is not just an amazing Doula but also an incredible person who genuinely cares for people she works with. I thank my stars that we met her when she was training with the midwives and even though we interviewed several doulas we just clicked with Mel and picked her. I cannot thank her enough for her support through my pregnancy, during the birth of my daughter and postpartum. Even today two weeks after I have had my baby, I constantly seek her advice and help which she so generously offers. She always had answers to my questions during pregnancy — helped me with my diet, suggested exercises for my posterior baby, suggested alternative treatments like chiropractors and acupuncture and was always spot on. When I went into labor she kept checking on me and came over even though I was showing signs of being in false labor. There is a very strong yet calming aura about her and her assertive words just kept me going through those contractions and pushing. She knew exactly what I was supposed to be doing and I just went along with her guidance and had the baby before I knew it. You just feel like you are in safe hands. She seriously made it easy for both my husband and I. She continues to help me deal with breastfeeding issues and has been such a huge support.
We are so happy that Mel was by our side through the whole journey and would not have it any other way.
Melissa Dean, you are freaking awesome! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts :)

For my first birth, I chose midwives and took hypnobirthing and hoped that the midwife and my husband would be able to coach me through childbirth. I ended up getting induced, having an unpleasant experience with an epidural, and almost getting a c-​section. Although my husband is wonderful and supportive, it was truly unrealistic to think that he would be able to coach me through labor (especially an induced labor!).
For my second birth, I knew I wanted to have midwives AND to hire a doula. I also knew that if I invited someone else into my labor, I wanted that person to have a lot of experience. I chose to interview Melissa because she has so much experience — I chose her to be my doula because I felt very comfortable with her right away. In the end, I ended up getting induced close to 42 weeks. Melissa supported me all the way through my pregnancy, including coming to my version (of a breech baby) and helping me decide when to be induced. Although I wasn’t able to avoid induction, with Melissa’s help I was able to avoid many interventions: no c-​section, no epidural, and no episiotomy. I know that I was able to make it through labor without an epidural only because of Melissa’s expertise and support. Another huge benefit was that my husband was so much more comfortable during this labor — he was able to follow Melissa’s lead and participate so much more and not get freaked out by my behavior during the really tough moments.
My midwife was great during delivery but it was Melissa who was there from start to finish of the labor and upon whom I depended most during the very hardest parts. I hope I’ll be able to have her attend any future births. I am sure that Melissa will also be an amazing midwife. We will be forever grateful to Melissa for helping us have a safe, healthy birth.

We were so lucky to have a midwife who recommended Melissa. She was with us for both of our births and I don’t know how we would have done it without her. I had two births with very little intervention and we really stayed with our birthing plan. I really don’t think we could have done it without Melissa. My husband is great but he had never even held a newborn before much less been in the room with someone giving birth and the two of them worked together like they had known each other for years.
Melissa was very calm but also take charge and I think she had a good way with the staff and me and my husband. She is very respectful but also sticks to the plan and people listen to her. I would recommend her to others and also hire her again!

I live in the Bay Area without any family other than my husband & so I knew I needed a doula by my side from the minute I got pregnant. We went to a the Midwifes Afternoon Tea at El Camino Hospital & spoke to a number of doulas.
We chose Melissa because she had so much experience, she is kind & was very supportive of how we wanted to approach pregnancy & our birth.
She was invaluable for me. It was event better than having a relative around. She knows so much about pregnancy & labour that she became my first point of contact throughout the pregnancy. I called her with any question & she was always happy to share her knowledge. When I had round ligament pain & thought I was dying, I called Melissa, when I was concerned about the baby not moving, I called Melissa for anything I was worried about, that I didn’t feel was an emergency.
If you are looking for a doula to support you through this amazing time of your life, then you must at least talk to Melissa to see if she is what you are looking for. She turned what could have been a very frightening & uncertain time, into the beautiful event I’d hoped it would be.

I didn’t have Melissa when I had a baby, if I had I probably would have had the VBAC that I wanted. My «babies» are a little older now, but I would definitely have considered her as my doula.
Why? Melissa is calm, nurturing and can also be firm when needed. She listens to people when they speak, which is what a Mom who is going through labor needs, someone that will be able to be firm yet nuturing and listen (as sometimes a Mom in labor is dismissed in her pain).
Melissa’s calm spirit makes me sad that I didn’t know her nearly 9 years ago!