Seeking Midwife for Homebirth in Oakland

Updated on January 02, 2009
A.B. asks from Berkeley, CA
4 answers

Hi All,

I'm wondering if anyone has any information on:
1) Using insurance for homebirths
2) Using Medi-Cal for Homebirths and,
3) Know of a good midwife who accepts Medi-Cal for homebirth.

I'm 4 months pregnant and am currently reciveing pre-natal through a local clinic. However, I really want to deliver at home and need some resources. ANY information would b helpful.

Thank YOu

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So What Happened?

So ust an update. I found out that Medi-cal WILL pay for a midwife BUT there are many rules around it and thus, very difficult for a midwife to actually accept it. A midwife must be liscenced AND be under the indirect supervision of an M.D. However, an M.D. can only have about 3 midwives under them AND from what i'm told, this process is just made really difficult by Medi-cal. So, most midwives (i'm told) don't do this, event those who really want to. This kinda sucks, as it makes it extra challenging for low-income women to have homebirth.

Also, i found that some insurance (PPO) will pay for homebirth and a midwife. They fit under the out-of-network provider category.

I'm hoping that this info will help others who may one day consider homebirth. Although we're not able to have insurance or medical coverage, I'm still very hopeful that we will have a beautiful homebirth. Just working on pulling other resources together.

Good film to check out: The Business of Being Born

More Answers

Smallavatar-fefd015f3e6a23a79637b7ec8e9ddaa6

J.L.

answers from San Francisco on

Please be very careful in selecting a homebirth midwife. There are many wonderful ones in our area and a very few, who have gotten very bad reports recently, and I'm sorry to say that Judy Luce is one of the latter--you are potentially putting your and your child's life in this person's hands, so please be very careful. I recommend you read the referrals posted on the Berkeley Parents Network website which will hopefully include some of the recent posts that talked about this. My midwife was Amrit Khalsa and she is wonderful, highly skilled with years of experience as an OB nurse in addition to decades of homebirths, and I highly recommend her; her contact info should be on the Bay Area homebirth collective site. There's also a homebirth families group associated with that site, you could post the same questions to that group, as others have done (might be an archive there too). I don't know about MediCal but insurance does not usually reimburse for homebirths and, in our area, most ob/gyns will not work with patients who are planning a homebirth, so I recommend you do your research before approaching your ob/gyn, insurance and the rest of the system. Good luck!

Smallavatar-fefd015f3e6a23a79637b7ec8e9ddaa6

R.K.

answers from San Francisco on

also try the Bay Area Homebirth Collective. look up the website on line. have a great birth!

Smallavatar-fefd015f3e6a23a79637b7ec8e9ddaa6

L.S.

answers from San Francisco on

Hi We love love love our they are Awakenings-an I don't know if they take meical-I think you will be har prssed to fing a homebirth option that will support meical-but, good luck- they are so steeped in the system will meical pay a midwife?-L their # is ###-###-####

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