Author: Michele James-Parham

Communications Coordinator & SWPA Regional Representative for MAP. Traditional Midwife, Community Herbalist, Holistic & Spiritual Health Consultant, Women's Mysteries Teacher, and Priestess in Pittsburgh, PA.

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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

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Midwives Foster Thriving Communities

The Midwifery difference goes beyond just the high quality care you can expect to receive during birth and the perinatal time. In midwifery communities, the name says it all: ‘Community’ is the very foundation of what makes this kind of care of exceptional. In other modalities, the doctor-patient relationship is typically all business, with the exception of some warm greetings from the familiar office staff, or meet-and-greets that occur with practice based childbirth education, there aren’t often opportunities to get to know the other clients in your provider’s network.  Read more

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RSVP for the Membership Meeting

Hello Friends! The Leadership Team of MAP has been hard at work planning for our Annual Meeting on Sunday, April 27th at 4:30 pm. We’d like to get a rough headcount for our meeting — if you are planning to attend the business meeting (for members only) at 4:30pm or if you are planning to attend the Herbs for Pregnancy and Birth Workshop presented by Erin Walker at 7pm that evening, please RSVP to me at: angelique.chelton at yahoo.com. We also have a dentist from LA Dental Town that will be joining us for our workshop that will talk about the expense involved with getting Austin Porcelain Veneers Read more