We offer individualized midwifery care! Bridge Town Midwifery, Inc serves families in the greater Portland, Oregon area. Our care is all done in your home and includes includes prenatal, postpartum, and newborn care in addition to labor and birth. As licensed Direct Entry Midwives in Oregon, we provide full service care to low-risk birthing families, all in the comfort of your own home!
The midwives at Bridge Town currently include Ondra Watson and Kelsey Fisher. Between them they have many years of experience at hundreds of births in a variety of settings for diverse families. In addition to practicing midwifery, Ondra has trained in CranioSacral Therapy and Holistic Pelvic Care. Kelsey keeps busy by participating in midwifery organizations in Oregon such as the Oregon Midwifery Council, the Oregon Midwifery Foundation, and the licensing board for Direct Entry midwives. You can learn more about them both here.
As autonomous (independent) healthcare providers, midwives are able to perform many of the same things you might experience in a doctors office. Each prenatal consists of checking vital signs for mother and baby, making assessments about the well being of the pregnancy and discussing any discomforts or complications you're experiencing. In addition to prenatal care, midwives continue to monitor and assess the baby and birthing parent during labor, birth, and immediate postpartum. They carry a range of medications and equipment to help keep everyone safe and well. If a situation ever comes up that they aren't able to handle or is outside the scope of midwifery practice, there is a transport plan in place for each family to help get any higher level care necessary. After the birth, midwives continue regular care for the mother and baby both for the first two months postpartum. For details about what midwifery care does or doesn't include, please visit our Services page.
We believe that pregnancy and birth are normal and natural parts of life. We also acknowledge that not everything normal and natural always goes easily, smoothly, or to plan. Acknowledging that, we believe midwives' role to be guarding or safekeeping the family. Much of our work is to make sure everything is normal, and when it isn't to either make the appropriate interventions we can or to transfer to a different care setting as necessary. We believe that parents are the best decision makers for themselves and their baby, and do our best to provide education and options for you to make your own choices throughout your care. For more details about each of our individual philosophies, please see this page.
Part of our philosophy is that people are best having babies where they feel the safest and most supported. For many low-risk women and birthing people, home can be a safe and gentle option. For more general information about different types of midwives, birth settings, and the safety of home birth, please visit the Oregon Midwifery Foundation. If you have questions about your specific situation or think home birth might be right for you, please contact us to schedule a free consultation.
Yes, and beyond! We are currently only able to serve clients living in Oregon, in the greater metro area. Specifically we do home birth in: Aloha, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Portland, Clackamas, Oregon City, Gladstone, Tigard, Milwaukie and Happy Valley. Please contact us to see if you're within our service area. If not, we will try to find someone who can help you.
Yes! Kelsey is enrolled as an OHP provider. It can be a little tricky to deal with Medicaid, but it is certainly possible. When it comes to private insurance, it is possible to bill for midwifery services, and some plans do cover home birth and/or birth with licensed midwives. We go over your specific financial and insurance situation at the beginning of midwifery care.
Absolutely! We typically wait until after the placenta is delivered and the cord has become completely white before we (or you, or whoever you want) cut it.
Yes! We have quite a bit of experience with waterbirth and have inflatable birth pools available for our clients to use. Waterbirth has it's own risks and benefits, but it is something we offer to all our clients.