Tag: midwifery

Midwives Alliance of Pennsylvania’s Assistants and Students Training (MAST)

by Angelique Chelton

MAP launched the new Midwives’ Alliance of Pennsylvania’s Assistants and Students’ Training (M.A.S.T)

Program in December 2014. The reasoning why such a program is necessary can be demonstrated in my own journey into midwifery.

In July of 2010, I realized that I was feeling a call to midwifery. Having just completed doula training in February of that year and not being part of the natural health/birth community, my first goal was to speak to some midwives about how to become a midwife. I was vaguely aware that some midwives were nurses (I wasn’t interested in nursing at all) and some weren’t. I wanted to speak to the midwives who weren’t nurses to see how they moved into their profession.

I did a Google search and came up with two names from prominent local midwifery practices. I emailed both and anticipated setting up a time to go visit with them individually, to drink tea and chat about what becoming a midwife entails.

I received no response from the first midwife and the second suggested I set up a pot-luck lunch with other aspiring midwives in the area so she could answer all our questions at once. Ummm, other aspiring midwives? I had no clue where to find these other women and didn’t get the feeling that the busy midwife would have patience to help me connect with them. Read more