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Choosing who will provide your care during pregnancy and birth is a highly personalized decision with benefits for either choice. For many women choosing a midwife provides them with the experience they're looking for that Western medicine doesn't always line up with.

When I switched from my obstetrician to my midwife my husband was completely confused and bewildered. He pictured a home birth with a backwoods hick attending me and the dreaded sentence,"We need a pot of hot water in here." The truth is there are several kinds of midwifes and many places they will perform births. Our midwife is a CNM, or Certified Nurse Midwife. She explained her degree was equivalent to a Nurse Practitioner with a specialty in Midwifery. The second group of midwifes are brought up though apprenticeship programs and pass standardized testing for certification. Their process is currently being restructured for a more uniform education.

The notion that midwives only attend home births is also wrong. Where a midwife will attend a birth depends on her certification and her practice's rules. Ours only attends births at the local hospital, but brings her more natural touch to the process and only uses medical intervention when necessary for the baby's and your safety. Others specialize in birth center or home births.

The benefits of choosing a midwife mainly surround their philosophy that pregnancy is a state of health, not sickness. Modern obstetricians are trained in symptom relief and detecting problems. A trip to my midwife's is much less alarmist than the days at the obstetrician. I've still undergone all of the same tests, but the perspective there is so wonderful. As for the birth, if you are looking for a birth with less monitors, less medication, and less intervention you may want to consider a midwife. The statistics alone prove this, lowered rates of induction, C-Sections, and episiotomies.

Once again, the choice between a midwife and an obstetrician is very personal. Talk with your partner and consider your pregnancy so far. You should consider the feelings of those closest to you, but the choice is still yours. Don't let a friend, a magazine, or a blog convince you otherwise. Motherly instinct starts now.

Learn more about this author, Erica Fields.
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