San Diego Midwife Interview With Jamin Sylvada – Natural Birth Options

This is the first in a series of interviews with health professionals regarding natural birth options. We previously outlined a number of childbirth choices that included midwives, birthing centers, water births, home births, and hospital midwife births.

San Diego women have many choices when it comes to alternative birth options. A simple Google local search for a midwife shows over 50 local businesses that provide midwife care.

In this interview with Jamin Sylvada of San Diego Midwife we discuss what a midwife does, how to select a midwife, is using a midwife right for you, how they work with health insurance companies, and what the costs look like.

Listen to the interview here:

Natural Birth – San Diego Midwife 2-28-13

Interview Transcript

TIM THOMPSON: Hi everybody, it’s Tim Thompson with SPF Insurance, and today we’re going to get some great information regarding alternative birthing options, and in particular, using a midwife for the prenatal and delivery process. With me today is Jamin Sylvada, and she’s an owner of San Diego Midwife. Jamin has been a midwife for over 10 years, after spending almost six years delivering babies in a hospital setting. Thank you for taking some time to talk with me today, Jamin.

JAMIN SYLVADA: Hello. Nice to be here.

THOMPSON: Great. Can you give us a brief overview of what a midwife does?

SYLVADA: I’m a homebirth midwife. So what a homebirth midwife does is clients will come and see us from 8 weeks pregnant, 8 to 12 weeks, and we’ll do all their prenatal care, we’ll do a homebirth, and then we’ll do all their postpartum care up to 6 weeks postpartum.

THOMPSON: Okay, so both before and after.

SYLVADA: Yes.

THOMPSON: Great.

SYLVADA: In general, that’s the care. We’ll start as early as 8 weeks. Now sometimes we can do transfers of care, where women will come a little later during the pregnancy, and we do that also.

THOMPSON: Okay. How does a woman decide if having a homebirth is right for her?

SYLVADA: Some women know even before they conceive. They’ve always known, “I’m going to do a homebirth the day I’m pregnant and I have a baby.” Maybe they saw their mom have a homebirth, maybe their best friend or their sisters. I would say a lot of women also start the pregnancy with a doctor and then suddenly they start reading, and they’re like, “Oh, there’s other ways of doing birth,” and then they start doing research. That’s when I would say they transfer during their pregnancy to us.

Really, a woman that wants to do a homebirth, from the beginning I always say, it’s a mom that wants to do it naturally, without drugs. Because that’s always the big question that you ask in the beginning to yourself, “Do I want drugs? Do I want no drugs?” If you want no drugs, then you have to decide, “Will I be able to do it in a hospital setting, or will I have a better chance of doing it if I stay at home?”

THOMPSON: Do you happen to know what percentage of women decide to go without drugs?

SYLVADA: The percentage of homebirth in the country?

THOMPSON: Correct.

SYLVADA: It used to be 1%, and now apparently it’s getting really close to 2%.

THOMPSON: Okay, so it’s still a smaller portion.

SYLVADA: Of doing a homebirth, yes. Now, some women still do natural at the hospital. But homebirth in this country is I would say about 2%, depending on states. Some states, it’s much higher.

THOMPSON: So someone should begin looking for a midwife very early on in this process, right?

SYLVADA: Usually I get phone calls, women find out they’re pregnant, they just did their pregnancy test, and they go online and start doing research. I have women that call me even before they conceive because they already know they want to do a homebirth, so they’re already starting inquiry about insurance and “what should I do?”, and get ready before they conceive. So it really varies, but pretty early.

THOMPSON: Makes sense. Is there a need to have a doctor involved at any point in time in the prenatal care or at the time of the delivery?
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