Questions to Ask When You Are Interviewing a Midwife
You are allowed to interview her.
Most women never quite realize this. You call a practice, you get an appointment, and by the second visit it feels impolite to still be weighing things. But this is a woman who will be in your bedroom at four in the morning, watching you at your most open. It is right and good to sit across from her first and ask what you want to know.
Nearly every midwife offers a consultation at no cost. Go and meet two or three. Take this list with you, or take the parts that matter to you and leave the rest.
None of these questions are rude. Every one of them has been asked of us, and we were glad each time.
About her, and how she practices
Why did you become a midwife? What makes your care different?
How long have you been a midwife, and how many births have you attended?
What kind of training did you receive, and how long did it take?
What settings did you train and practice in?
Do you practice alone or in a team? How does that work?
If you are in a team, could the team change during my pregnancy?
Can I choose who attends my birth? How many people usually come?
How many due dates do you take each month?
What happens if two of your clients are in labor at the same time?
Those last two are worth sitting with. Ask them gently and then let her talk. How a practice handles two women laboring at once will tell you a great deal about what your own night might look like.
About prenatal care
What do routine appointments look like, and how long do they last?
Will we discuss nutrition, chiropractic care, Spinning Babies, and similar?
What prenatal testing and screening should I expect?
How are sonograms and lab work handled?
How do you screen for gestational diabetes, and how do you manage it if I have it?
About where you will give birth
Do you attend births at home, in a birth center, or both?
Do you offer water birth? If I am at home, do you provide the tub?
Do you work with a consulting physician, and in what capacity?
About risk and transfer
This is the section people skip because it is uncomfortable. Ask it anyway. You want these answers now, from someone calm, not in the middle of the night.
At what point might I become high risk and no longer suitable for your care?
If I risked out of care, what would a non-emergent transfer look like?
What is your transfer rate in labor?
What would that process actually look like? Would you come with me or stay behind?
Have you had positive experiences with transfers here?
What medications and equipment do you carry for an emergency with me or my baby?
Do you have experience with VBAC, breech, or twins? Do you have additional training in those?
A word about that transfer rate question, because the number alone will not tell you much. Rates move around. A midwife who cares for more VBAC families, more first-time mothers, or families living further from a hospital may carry a higher one for reasons that have nothing to do with her skill. Transfers also come in waves, and a single busy season can move a number without anything having changed underneath it.
The more useful question is what her most common reasons for transfer are. Listen for whether they sound like careful decisions made early or like emergencies arrived at late.
That will tell you far more than a percentage. And not every midwife is the strongest choice for every situation. A good one will tell you when someone else is a better fit for what you need.
About labor itself
At what point in labor would you get involved? When should I call you?
How do you approach tools and interventions, cervical exams, IV placement, breaking waters, monitoring heart tones?
What is your philosophy on doula support?
If I go past my due date, what is the plan?
About after the birth
What are your routine procedures following the birth?
How long do you stay at my home, or how long would we stay at the birth center?
Do you offer perineal suturing, and what is your experience with it?
What newborn care do you provide? Do you do home visits?
What does breastfeeding support look like? Do you have additional training there?
About the investment
Money can feel like an awkward thing to raise in a conversation about birth. Raise it anyway.
What is the fee, and what does it include?
What is billed separately?
What is the payment schedule, and when is the balance due?
What happens to the money if care needs to transfer to another provider?
Do you bill insurance, or is payment direct? What help do you offer with reimbursement?
How to listen to the answers
The content of the answers matters. So does everything around them.
Is she specific? “We take safety very seriously” is not an answer. A description of what she carries, what she screens for, and what she does when something changes is an answer.
Is she comfortable being asked? You are going to ask her hard things in labor too. Watch what happens to her face when you ask a hard thing now.
Does she ever say she does not know? A midwife who has an immediate confident answer to everything is either extraordinary or not being straight with you. The good ones say “let me look that up” sometimes.
Does she tell you when she is not the right fit? Someone who takes every family who calls is telling you something about how she practices.
How do you feel in the room? Most women know within twenty minutes. That instinct is not unserious. It is information gathered faster than you can articulate it, and it is worth trusting alongside everything else.
A note on interviewing more than one
It can feel disloyal, especially if you liked the first person. It is not. Any midwife worth hiring expects it and most of us encourage it.
You are also allowed to change your mind later. Women switch providers at twenty weeks, at thirty, occasionally further along than that. It is your birth.
We are interviewing too
It goes both ways, and it should.
A consultation is not a sales meeting. It is two people finding out whether they ought to walk through the next nine months together. While you are deciding about her, she is deciding about you too. It is how you both end up in a room you actually want to be in.
I am not the midwife for everyone. Some families want a larger practice with more hands in it. Some want a birth center. Some want care I do not offer, or a way of making decisions that does not sit well alongside how I practice. None of that is a failure on anyone’s part.
What I care about most is that a family lands where they are genuinely well matched, whether that turns out to be here or somewhere else entirely. A woman who is quietly unsure about her provider carries that into her labor, and labor asks enough of her already.
So ask everything. And expect to be asked a few things in return.
Where to start
Malta Midwifery is an exclusively homebirth practice in Lubbock. We are glad to answer every question on this list, including the uncomfortable ones, and we will tell you if we do not think we are the right fit for your family.
Consultations are in person. We review your health history, talk through what you hope for, and decide together.
To schedule, call or text 806-281-7725, or email maltamidwifery@gmail.com.
