Women have the natural ability to give birth with confidence and dignity. As women search for ways to reclaim the beauty and power of birth, more women are choosing to give birth with midwives.
Artemis Midwifery:
The heart of the art of midwifery is to support healthy, natural, and gentle birth experiences which honor mother, child, and family. We work to provide personal midwifery care with a friendly touch.
Pregnancy and birth is a rite of passage in which mother, child, and family experience a deep transformation. During this journey, it is important they receive loving support from their trusted community and care providers. We know each mother needs to be listened to, encouraged to trust her own intuition and retain her power.
We believe in education as a path to empowerment. Thus we offer opportunities for mothers and families to understand and discuss their choices during pregnancy and birth, so they may make healthy decisions based on their personal values. This approach increases healthy outcomes and happy families.
Your Midwife:
Jacqueline Hope Medford has been attending births since 1997. She trained at the Northern New Mexico Women's Health & Birth Center in Taos, New Mexico. That birth center is unique because it serves more births per capita with midwifery care than any other natural birth center in the U.S.- approximately 25% of families choose to give birth outside the hospital, as compared with 1-2% in the rest of the country.
Hope graduated from the National College of Midwifery in 1999 and became a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) in 2000. She moved to Portland to work at the Andaluz Waterbirth Center and earned her Oregon State Midwifery License in 2001. Here she continued to practice midwifery and earned confidence in her experiences with waterbirth, having now assisted over 200 babies born underwater.
Hope has also been trained in Massage, Yoga, and Cranial Sacral Therapy for infants. She integrates holistic and alternative therapy approaches to health in her care for you and your family. With past experiences working in hospice and domestic violence prevention, she also has a background supporting women and families through deep life transitions.
Your Birth Options:
- You can choose to give birth in the comfort, convenience, and safety of your Home
- You may choose to labor or give birth in Water- we can bring a birth tub to your home
- You can also choose to give birth in a Birth Center for your birth and immediate postpartum care with optional waterbirth facilitites. (We use Andaluz Waterbirth Center: this option involves an additional fee, negotiated with and paid directly to them)
Appointments:
- Our visits will be either at your family's home or at the clinics.
- Our practice shares the Jyoti Clinic with Whole Mama Whole Child at 5515 NE 30th Ave at Killingsworth. At Jyoti, there 8 other women's health care practitioners who specialize in pregnancy and post partum care for mamas and babies including a chiropractor, accupuncturist, masseuse, and cranial sacral therapist.
- If you choose a birth center birth, we will have some appointments at either Andaluz clinic closest to you (downtown Portland or Tualatin).
Midwifery Services Provided:
I provide continuity of care, which means I will be involved in you complete pre-natal, labor, birth, and postpartum care up to 6 weeks. Our appointments are a minimum of every 3 to 4 weeks until 30 weeks of pregnancy, every 2 weeks until 36 weeks, then once a week until birth, 24-hour on-call availability by 36 weeks for labor or other emergency needs, labor and delivery care, newborn exam after birth, postpartum visits at 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, and 6 weeks, contraceptive counseling and pap smear. We may offer more visits when appropriate.
More about your Midwife:
In Portland, Hope has became involved in community education and in 2005 was a founding board member of the non-profit, Tryon Life Community Farm. With earned support of the city, this non-profit purchased land and put it into public land trust. As education coordinator for TLC Farm for two years, Hope participated in and taught classes about environmental sustainability, natural building, permaculture, social justice, and environmental arts.
Hope recently founded The Artemis Institute of Women's Healing Arts, offering classes which integrate creative arts with the healing arts. This project has been born from her skills as midwife, artist, and education coordinator.
Though she loves to act locally, she thinks globally- she has met and worked with doulas and midwives in Guatemala, West Africa, Peru, South Africa, and Brazil.
Her desire to share knowledge and learn wisdom from different cultures has grown out of awareness for the need for greater safety and empowerment of women in their birth experiences internationally, and a desire to bridge the gap between traditional and modern midwifery.
"Hope's gentle encouragement, firm support and grounded education gave me the confidence to have the birth I truly longed for. My baby, my partner and I are forever grateful to have found her" - Jen
Why Midwifery?
The U.S. is 20th in the World Health Organization's statistics on perinatal mortality and morbidity. In other words, there are 20 other countries in the world where it is safer to give than birth than in an American hospital. The other countries with better statistics almost exclusively use midwives rather than doctors.
What is a Midwife?
A Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) is an independent healthcare practitioner who has met the standards for certification set by the North American Registry of Midwives (NARM) and is qualified to provide the Midwives Model of Care, working primarily in out-of-hospital settings.
The Midwives Model of Care is based on the fact that pregnancy and birth are normal life events.
The Midwives Model of Care includes:
- monitoring the physical, psychological and social well-being of the mother throughout the childbearing cycle;
- providing the mother with individualized education, counseling, and
- prenatal care, continuous hands-on assistance during labor and
- delivery, and postpartum support;
- minimizing technological interventions; and
- identifying and referring women who require obstetrical attention.
The application of this model has been proven to reduce the incidence of birth injury, trauma, and cesarean section. © Midwifery Task Force
What are some of the benefits of Waterbirth?
Waterbirth:
- eases labor pain
- helps decrease length of labor
- decreases chances of vaginal and perineal tearing
- encourages effective positions for the baby's passage
- increases the mom's comfort and mobility in labor
- provides a warm, gentle transition for the baby
- parents are often able to catch their own babies in the water
contact: hope@artemishealingarts.com
or call 503-758-0899
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artemishealingarts@yahoo.com ~ 503-758-0899 ~
Artemis Institute · 2021 SE 34th Ave. · Portland, OR 97214
