MEDICAL NEWS
New Alternatives
FOR EXPECTING PARENTS By Su Clauson-wicker
Sarah Gibbs, a permaculture garden designer, likes to do things naturally. But at 42, she wanted to deliver her second child in a hospital, as she had her first. Gibbs wanted medical expertise, but she craved more control over her birth experience. Luckily for Gibbs, Carilion New River Valley Medical Center has three master’s-degree certified nurse-midwives on the hospital’s staff. Gibbs met with both a physician and midwife Kris Conrad during her pregnancy, and delivered baby Kyle at the hospital’s “e Birthplace.” Midwives Conrad and Mattie Berry were on duty. “Kris and Mattie were wonderfully supportive throughout,” Gibbs says. “ey explained the facts and let me decide many things. I was so involved this time.” Since September, e Birthplace has offered midwife services 24/7. Patients can choose whether to deliver with a physician or a midwife, and almost 20 percent request midwives. “We’re in partnership with our clients,” Conrad says. “We support their autonomy as well as their health.”
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SPRING 2013 | CarilionClinic.org
Top: Midwife Sherrie Doss holds newborn Aubrei Stump. Bottom: Midwife Mattie Berry listens to fetal heart tones as she examines Aubrei’s mother, Tristi DeBord.