06/30/2026
oh this! A recent transfer did not go well for me. For my client yes, and transferred to “the good hospital” with “the best staff to work with” yet when trying to give report to the physician and answer her questions, she pointed her finger at me and said, “you don’t have privileges here so I’m not interested in what you have to say.” Fine. I will sit down and shut up and let her fumble around for the info she needed to care for my client. The nurse just looked at me helplessly and I could tell my presence was not going to help my client, so I gracefully bowed out once I knew my fax went thru and her epidural was placed. I apologized to her but told her I thought her experience would be better if I, the target of the doctors annoyance, was gone. She understood and she kept me in the loop while she finished laboring in comfort. We resumed postpartum care when she got home and reports a good experience overall. This heart work is often misunderstood by western medicine :(
Transfers happen. And do we have a space to talk about them?
In most cases, safe transfers are a sign that community birth is working well. We need a way for community-based midwives to ALWAYS feel like they can transfer their clients to a hospital where they are 1) welcomed 2) respected and 3) treated with compassion. In my experience, my clients most often *do* receive excellent care...but their midwives? They're not always treated with the same level of respect.
This not only drives a larger divide between community birth and hospital birth...but it can lead to decreased safety.
Most home and community births go exceptionally well. And it's unfortunate that most hospital providers ONLY see the births where extra help is needed. This can cause a bias against community birth to develop. I wish every LD nurse and OB/GYN could shadow a homebirth midwife for a month. I believe just a few weeks would drastically change their opinion on community birth.
Of course, I witness many transfers where both client and midwife are welcomed with open arms. And it truly makes SUCH a difference. These are the hospitals I recommend, time and time again.
And then there also must be discussion around the stigma of transfer within the natural birth community. Getting help is NEVER a failure. Choosing to transfer is often the bravest decision. It's another example of the surrender that we must often do when we give birth. But changing your birth location is hard, and many folks grieve the loss of their *ideal* birth. Yes, a healthy mom and baby matter. But also? Your birth experience matters too. We can't discount the latter just because we get the former.
And lastly: I will say this with humility and compassion: NO birth location guarantees anything. I wish there was a place and a space where every parent and baby came out of birth healthy and well...but quite simply, it doesn't exist. Bad outcomes happen in the hospital too.
I firmly believe that all families make the choice that feel safest to them. And ultimately? They know their bodies, their nervous systems, and their babies better than we do.
