Alumni Spotlight
FNU Graduates Open Midwifery Clinic Aimed at Making Homebirth Midwifery Affordable and Available to Everyone Qualified Health Center (FQHC) located in the northwest corner of the state, approximately four hours from Des Moines. Without insurance, Hainley said home birth costs between $6,000 and $7,000 and must be paid upfront in cash. “That prices out so many of our population,” she said. “Those lower socioeconomic groups are really at a disadvantage at finding midwifery home birth care.” Hainley and Zambrano-Andrews come by their passion to serve women of all ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds honestly. Included in the insurances they accept is Medicaid.
Drs. Caitlin Hainley (left) and Emily Zambrano-Andrews (right). When your business offers something no one else does, it’s either because you’re ahead of the curve or there’s a reason no one else is doing it. For Drs. Caitlin Hainley and Emily Zambrano-Andrews, both might very well be true. Fellow Frontier Nursing University (FNU) alumni Hainley, DNP, ARNP-CNM, IBCLC, and Zambrano-Andrews, DNP, ARNP-CNM opened the Des Moines Midwife Collective on September 1, 2021. Their clinic is the first in central Iowa and only the second in the entire state to accept insurance care for homebirth midwifery services. They understand why others don’t accept insurance, but more importantly, they know why Des Moines Midwife Collective does. “What we really want to do here is bring accessible care,” said Hainley, Companion DNP Class 5. “I want to be the type of midwife I wish had been around when I was having babies. I want to be open to all socioeconomic demographics.”
“What we really want to do here is bring accessible care, I want to be the type of midwife I wish had been around when I was having babies. I want to be open to all socioeconomic demographics.” -Caitlin Hainley
“We want to give women access to care and to serve women of all backgrounds,” said Zambrano-Andrews, Companion DNP Class 5. “That’s hard to do when you are cash pay only and don’t take insurance.” So hard to do, in fact, that the only other clinic in the state that accepts insurance for home birth midwifery care is a Federally
“Medicaid reimbursement is not always very high, but it’s just important for us to provide access,” Hainley said. “We were once the Medicaid moms looking for midwives. We have both been poor. We’ve both been on Medicaid and food stamps. Accessing kind, respectful, equitable care is important to us because we’ve been there.” Both of these Iowa midwives were born and raised in rural Iowa but took different routes to arrive where they are today. ZambranoAndrews gave birth to her first child when she was 19. It was an experience that forged her path to becoming a nurse-midwife. “I was on state insurance so I felt like I had to go to one place,” Zambrano-Andrews said. “A nurse practitioner gave me most of my care, but then my delivery was with an OB and that was not the most pleasant experience. I decided I wanted to go to nursing school after I had my daughter. I wanted to be a labor delivery nurse to be supportive of women.” One of Zambrano-Andrews’ instructors in nursing school was FNU graduate Ann Ersland, MSN, Class 32. “She was my motivator and my mentor,” Zambrano-Andrews said. “She was a huge
Frontier Nursing University • Quarterly Bulletin 15
