Seattle Home Maternity Service & Childbirth Center

I’d rate Seattle Home Maternity a 6 if I could. Both my children were delivered at home, one by Tracy and one by Heather. Both are wonderful, competent, understanding, comforting… I can go on. The interns the child center admits are also great. I felt more comfortable having these midwives help me deliver my babies than my obstetrician.
My birth experience was exactly as I wanted: No intervention, cozy, intimate, naturally evolving and led by me. I would not change anything about my experience. If you decide to go here you are in good hands.

Had an amazing birth experience! By the end of my pregnancy the midwives and students felt more like family.
I had a quick birth and was happy that the providers arrived quick as well. As far as appointments went I was always able to book my checkups as needed and was only canceled on once when a birth came up but they were able to get me rescheduled soon after without issue. Would definitely recommend!

How can you even write a review for the amazing people who help you bring your baby into this life?
I had just an incredible experience with all the people at SHMS for my first pregnancy. Suzanne, the office manager, was superbly helpful and friendly and personable all the time. The two student assistants I worked with, Faisa and Taylor, were competent, friendly, knowledgeable and caring. Heather, Tracy and Marge all provided such excellent loving care during prenatal visits.
And Heather and Faisa, who ended up attending my (40+ hour long) labor. I relied on them so much. A lot of unexpected things came up during my labor (lasting forever, meconium in the fluid, etc.) and anytime I had anxiety, I could check in with Heather, get her reassurance that everything was fine, and totally totally trust her words. Her calmness and reasonableness during special circumstances helped me feel completely safe. It was so nice to be able to focus on the process instead of worrying about whether or not I could trust my care providers opinion, or having to advocate for my preferred birth plan.
Had I gone the hospital birth route, I most certainly would have faced an induction, and probably even more interventions after that, given how long and slow my labor was. My gorgeous baby boy was born perfectly healthy at 42 weeks on the nose. I could not have asked for better care getting him here.

I love the SHMS midwives! They have cared for me through two of my pregnancies/​births now and I couldn’t be happier or more impressed with the compassionate, high-​quality, personalized care that they give.

I loved the care I received from these wonderful women. I had a normal pregnancy until 37 weeks when we discovered my baby was breech. Once Marge suspected that the baby was not in the proper position, she called and got me an appointment for an ultrasound within an hour. The nurses at Group Health were all familiar with SHMS and had only positive things to say about them.
Once the ultrasound confirmed the breech position, we called Tracy who helped us and supported us every step of the way. She was familiar with the doctors at Group Health and also had recommendations for alternative medicine options to try to turn our baby. In the end, we couldn’t turn her so we scheduled a c-​section. I felt pretty upset about this outcome and the midwives were so understanding of my emotions and so supportive of me.
The midwives offered to continue my care post-​partum even though we delivered at Overlake. Tracy came to our house after we were home to weigh our baby and help with breastfeeding. It was wonderful to have a home visit and not have to try to get to an appointment at the office.
The office visits felt so relaxing. It feels more like you are at a friends house than a medical appointment. I have several friends who have all had wonderful birth experiences with these midwives. I highly recommend their care.

I am so thankful for this wonderful place. It was the best health care I have ever received and our birth experience was exactly what I wanted. My prenatal visits were all with Heather and Traci and both showed the utmost professionalism, knowledge and calm assuring care. Traci was at our birth in the birth center and I knew that my daughter and I were in the best hands we could ask for. Even if our birth experience had led us to a «plan B», I would still get all my prenatal care with SHMS. Thank you thank you thank you for making my pregnancy and birth such a positive and empowering experience. I cannot recommend SHMS enough.

I tried to get an appointment with SHMS for over 2 months unsuccessfully. I first started calling around 6 weeks pregnant and left 4 – 5 messages over 1 month. 2 calls were returned but got my voicemail, my additional calls were never returned. I persisted, really wanting to work with them, and finally got an appointment (which was very difficult to schedule due to their limited availability) — but when my partner and I showed up (he’d rearranged his schedule to take time off work) they told me there was a mistake and I didn’t have an appointment after all and were not very gracious about the situation. They couldn’t see me for several more weeks. Frustrated I scheduled an appointment with an OB simply so I could see someone about my pregancy, even though i’d prefer to work with a midwife because they couldn’t get me in for another several weeks.
I rescheduled and almost 2 months from the time I first tried to contact them we met with Marge who seemed wonderful. We talked about our concerns about getting in touch and how available they would be during pregnancy given their track record so far. They explained they’d had twice as many births that month as normal and had some other unusual issues and apologized, assuring me they’re usually very very responsive. I was a little uncomfortable that they were willing to accept twice as many births as usual without increased staffing, but since they’re in the neighborhood and we wanted to stay close to home, we decided to go with them, scheduling our first real appointment a few weeks later (the earliest they had available on days we were free).
The morning of my first appointment, they called to cancel because the midwife I was supposed to meet with was at a birth. They offered to reschedule me but due to me traveling the following week, couldn’t get me in for a while… meaning that my first appointment with them would have been at 19 weeks. At this point I wasn’t feeling confident about their ability to provide consistent and reliable service during my pregnancy and called another midwife practice that was able to see me in less than 48 hours and start working with me within a week.
I’ve heard good things about SHMS, so I give them the benefit of the doubt that if you can get in with them (your schedule is flexible and they have’nt taken on more births than they can handle) they are probably great. But I must say I believe they are overcommitted and understaffed. Other midwife practices I’ve talked to and the one I ended up working with attended the same number of births per month as SHMS with more midwives on staff. The practice I ended up going with always has 2 people on backup in addition to the one person on call, so even if one or two midwives are at births, a third is available to keep the appointments they’ve scheduled with their other clients so you can count on having your prenatal appointments regularly. I reallllly wanted to love and work with SHMS but simply would not recommend them to a friend.

I had a great experience at the Childbirth Center. If you want a birth center where you can feel at home, this is it! It feels like you are having a home birth except you have all the things you need without having to worry about setting up a tub and providing towels, clean up etc… The midwives are super caring here :)

I can’t say enough positive things about these wonderful women. When you go here for care, you get just that: caring about you and your baby.
PROS:
–They are clinically adept. (They more accurately predicted my baby’s birth weight than the 40-​week ultrasound.)
–They are caring, and spend plenty of time with patients at each appointment.
–They ask how YOU are doing, not just check on the baby.
–You get to meet with each midwife and know them well, so you’ll know the person attending your delivery.
–They can recommend natural solutions to common pregnancy issues. And these natural solutions tend to be just as effective without the side effects.
–They were able to manually handle several issues during my labor that would have probably led to surgery in the hospital.
–They know their limitations and still provide excellent care if you need assistance by a medical provider.
–You are in charge of your care and are given options for tests and treatment. Benefits and risks are always discussed, as well as your feelings on the matter.
–You are encouraged to eat and drink during your labor. You can move about as you please.
–You are HOME already when the baby is born. No interns popping in and out of your room. No car seat and going home without a clue what you’ll do when you get there.
–Home visit after the baby is born. And on-​call home visits if there is an issue postpartum. (Even at 2am!!!)
CONS:
–If you stay at home for labor and delivery, you don’t get drugs. And labor hurts. A lot.
I think the best thing about receiving care through midwives is they assume everything is fine until proven that it’s not. I’ve found that doctors assume something is wrong until they prove otherwise. The importance of this is that birth is treated like a normal and healthy event, not an illness requiring treatment.
This does not mean you don’t have certain tests or that illnesses or complications aren’t treated; it means that the wealth of experience of the midwives allows them to realistically assess issues and they can often provide a «non-​nuclear» solution. For example, prune juice instead of OTC or prescription medication for pregnancy-​induced digestion issues. (PS – It works!)
I switched from an OB at 27 weeks because I felt the doc was treating the baby, but I was second fiddle. I liked her, but the visits were brief and clinical, and when I realized that she wouldn’t necessarily be at my delivery, I started to shop around. I wanted to know the people who’d be with me, and feel more empowered over the decisions made for the pregnancy.
Heather, Anne, and Cindy were great during my labor. I was in pain, but was reassured by their presence that it was normal and the baby was healthy. They monitored my vitals and the baby’s throughout, and took some pretty extraordinary steps to help me out during the tough times.
Because of my ridiculously long labor, I would have certainly received interventions and possibly surgery if I had been in the hospital. But I and the baby were perfectly healthy. It just took long.
When I required extra stitching after the delivery, Heather recommended we go to Swedish. Heather called the hospital and got everything set up for us so we could just go right in. She coached me on hospital procedure and went over the options they’d provide once we got there. She and Anne stayed with me through the whole procedure, held my hand, and helped me through the steps needed to achieve a discharge from the hospital. So above and beyond what they needed to do, but it was so appreciated.
I could go on, so PM me if you have specific questions.

I should first say that I am not a hippie. I like meat, Nordstrom’s, driving my car, and love me some ibuprofen… and I gave birth at home.
When shopping around for care, I realized I wanted a high touch, low tech prenatal and birth experience. I also wanted caregivers with the medical knowledge and the professional confidence to know if and when I needed care from a hospital. SHMS had the perfect balance and gave me the confidence to do a home birth.
Each prenatal appointment lasted approximately an hour– physical, mental, and social health were all topics the team of midwives addressed (not just put on a chart.) When I brought in my skeptical sister, a nurse, the midwife was able to answer every question and «what if» scenario with expertise and grace.
The birth itself was a weird, awesome, and painful experience that I would absolutely do again. I cannot fathom how so many women are able to get into a car while they are having contractions. There were definitely some funny moments (like when they weighed the baby with a fish scale) but I was always confident that I was receiving excellent care for both of us.
Postnatal care was equally attentive. When we had some trouble getting the baby to eat several days after the birth, a midwife assistant was at the house within 30 minutes of my call. She stayed for three hours, helping us with different positions, tricks, and then waiting until I was calmed down as well.
The care my baby, husband and I received was phenomenal. My only criticism of SHMS is that they don’t provide services unless you are having a baby:-)

Before we even conceived, my OB-​GYN came at me with course of genetic testing she strongly suggested in order to determine «if having a child would be WORTH IT». She also told me my age (32) was a huge issue and that I’d likely have to have a c-​section. All this and I wasn’t even pregnant yet!
Based on that experience, I sought midwife care when we became pregnant with our son (now 11-​weeks old). This practice, emphasizes guiding your pregnancy not treating it as though it were an illness. The biggest component in my treatment throughout the pregnancy was ME. I was given choices and not «lead» to decisions. Their approach was firm but respectful and i always had ample time to ask questions and my concerns were always addressed. At times the 30+ minute appointments seemed almost too long. ;)
SHMS was the best decision I could have made for my sanity and my health. My «text book» pregnancy and delivery with no complications were in no small part attributed to the excellent care and empowering support I received from these midwives. I’m proud to have had my son at their birth center, proud to have done it naturally, and grateful for all the follow-​up and truly enthusiastic attention we as a family received. Thank you to all the midwives at SHMS and their student midwives, too!

We are currently in the care of Heather at SHMS and I cannot say enough wonderful things about her and this practice. Even though this is our first baby, I have attended two other births with these midwives and all I can say is that they really know what they are doing. In regards to the comment about care for a breech baby, I would just like to add our experience. SHMS was very straightforward from the beginning of our pregnancy that they do NOT deliver breech babies vaginally. In fact, we just completed a home birthing class with twenty other couples, almost all of which had their own different midwives around Seattle, and NONE of them had a midwife that would do this either. Everyone expected that they would have a hospital birth if breech, and my understanding is that this is largely due to liability. I don’t think it is a fair assumption that SHMS should deliver a breech baby vaginally. As a result, Heather has worked to identify our babies position from very early on, and monitored it throughout. The issue is that you cannot really engage in the «natural» remedies to breech until pretty late in the game (36, 37 weeks) such as «version» which involves a doctor manually moving him or her in your belly. And if this doesn’t work, then you have to transfer to the hospital.
What I would most like to communicate here is that at SHMS you get constant and exceptional care with very clear explanations of what is going on in your body and how to handle these changes. They put your (and your babies) health and safety first and foremost and always communicate this in a loving, kind and caring manner. I cannot recommend them enough.

When my child was persistently breech, Marge repeatedly urged me to wait as long as possible before seeking out alternatives for my birth. The only actions she did encourage were home remedies that did not threaten her loss of me as a client. Marge diagnosed my breech baby as vertex, and urged me to «wait and see». Her estimation of position was disproved by both my intuition and an ultrasound. My child had been breech for as long as I could tell, yet I did not find out until leaving Marge’s care that if the baby had never been vertex and remained breech at 30, 32 and 34 weeks the greatest probability was that the baby would remain breech. The 3 to 4% chance that she quoted of my baby staying breech was, in reality, a much larger probability. This is information that I feel was left undisclosed in an attempt to hide her own incompetence and fear of liability. It was not until barely four weeks before my due date that Marge admitted to me that she had not attended a breech birth for several decades and that there was no chance of a natural breech birth with SHMS. When I insisted on a natural birth, she suggested that this option was possible but highly unlikely. By leaving her care and empowering myself with information and real options, I was enabled to have an optimal and amazing home birth. I am dismayed at Marge’s interpretation of midwifery care, and my heart goes out to the other mothers who have no doubt been funneled into «elective» cesareans by her misinformation. This midwife is definitely a «doctor in disguise.»