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Birthing Instincts

#378 The Cost of Homebirth, Navigating Insurance in Midwifery

Birthing Instincts

Dr. Stuart Fischbein + Midwife Blyss Young

Parenting, Kids & Family, Alternative Health, Health & Fitness

4.5 • 631 Ratings

🗓️ 11 September 2024

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ever wondered what it takes to provide accessible midwifery care in today's complex healthcare landscape? Join Blyss as she chats with Fadwah Halaby, a seasoned certified nurse midwife, whose journey from being inspired by Ina May Gaskin's book to navigating the intricacies of midwifery practice is nothing short of fascinating. Fadwah's insights shed light on the vital differences between hospital and home births, and the struggle to stay true to midwifery principles within hospital constraints. You will hear how she finds fulfillment in delivering evidence-based, respectful care and her vision for building a dedicated team to serve diverse communities.

Fadwah shares why it was important for her to contract with insurance companies to make home births accessible to all women. She sheds light on the struggles of getting fair compensation to ensure the sustainability of midwifery services which eventually led her to leave the insurance model and start a grassroots movement to make midwifery care more accessible. By gathering community support through her non-profit and removing financial barriers for families looking for midwifery care, Fadwah hopes to expand the movement to be able to help families on a larger scale and address systemic inequalities.

About P Fadwah Halaby:

Fadwah has worked as a nurse since 1992 (32 years) in various areas such as home health, ER, and L&D. For the past 18 years she has worked as a Nurse Practitioner, Certified Nurse Midwife - 8 years in a busy OB practice facilitating hospital birth and office gynecology, and 10 years in her independent home birth practice. She has assisted over 2000 babies to be born with about 500 of those in the community birth setting. She has been offering breech and twin birth in her practice for years, more often in the past few years since completing formal training through Spinning Babies and Breech Without Borders. The first birth she ever witnessed live (other than her own) was a breech birth, in 1986.

Connect with Fadwah Halaby:

Key highlights:

  • Challenges of Midwifery Care Accessibility
  • Expertise in Breech and Twin Births
  • Navigating Midwifery Care Insurance Challenges
  • Equitable Compensation for Birth Workers
  • Accessible Midwifery Care Financing Solutions

Episode resources:

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Connect with Dr. Stu & Blyss:


Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to the Burling Instincts Podcast.

0:05.0

I'm Dr. Stewart Fishbein, community-based practicing obstetrician and longtime advocate for birth choices.

0:10.0

And I'm Bliss Young, a licensed midwife.

0:13.0

Join us in our conversational style podcast where we talk about everything birth.

0:17.0

Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we cry, but we're happy that you're here. So here we go.

0:24.8

Good morning, everyone.

0:26.7

It is Bliss, and I am recording again without our lovely Dr. Stu because he's in Australia,

0:34.1

and it's like, I don't know, three in the morning or something for him.

0:38.7

So I'm here with Fadwa, who is an amazing midwife.

0:44.4

She's going to introduce yourself that I got the privilege to meet at both of the

0:48.8

twin breach conferences that I went to in Louisville.

0:52.4

And today we're going to be talking about the challenges

0:55.1

of midwives taking insurance and how to make our care more accessible to families. So

1:01.8

thank you so much for joining us today, Fadwa. I'm so honored to be sitting with you. I know that

1:08.0

you've been practicing for a really long time and are doing some

1:11.4

really amazing work in your community. So why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are

1:16.8

and how do you get into midwifery and all of those great things so that we can get to know you a little bit

1:23.6

better. Thank you, Bliss. I am so honored to have been asked to be a part of this

1:31.5

podcast. I listened to your podcast and I think you guys are amazing and I was, it was a little bit of a

1:37.8

fan girl moment when I first met you guys in Kentucky last year and just was amazing how down to earth, you know, you are and how we're

1:48.7

all united in this journey to try to bring respectful evidence-based care to everyone that is seeking

1:56.9

it, especially folks that find themselves with a breach baby. So my name is Fadwa

...

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