#444: Restoring Midwifery: Breaking Down the Indefensible

In this week’s episode, Dr. Stu and Midwife Blyss interview Rowan Bailey and Sarita Bennett, two midwives who have faced significant legal and professional challenges. They discuss Rowan's experience of being jailed for practicing traditional midwifery and Sarita's struggles with administrative hearings. The conversation dives into the importance of traditional, individualized midwifery care and critiques the current medical and midwifery systems for their lack of emotional and community support. Rowan and Sarita share their innovative approach to restorative peer review, aiming to create a compassionate, accountable midwifery community.

About Rowan Bailey

My heart for midwifery is rooted deeply in my conviction for sovereignty in the childbearing year. The more I studied and became involved in birth work, the more stories I heard that began with ‘they wouldn’t let me ____’ or ‘I was high risk because ____’ and that solidified the midwife I was to become.

The infantilization of women within obstetrics and modern day midwifery is systemic, damaging, and down right patriarchal. I didn’t take my call to be the one to say yes to those that the system failed lightly. I knew that they were smart, capable women who just wanted someone to walk with them. I figured if I was going to answer this call, I was going to do it with integrity.

My mission is to be a mirror and a reminder that when we break out of captivity and become our most powerful selves we can make the movement move. I want us all to find our feet and our breath and be fully who we are meant to be: wild, raw, messy, and beautifully ungovernable.

About Sarita Bennett

I learned midwifery in the traditional model - by attending those families who were choosing home birth early in the modern home birth movement. Most of the forty-plus years I have served as a midwife and osteopathic family physician have been in a rural, mountainous region that is far from any hospital with OB providers or surgical capability, leading to the development of a detailed understanding of reproductive physiology and the inter-relatedness of all parts of the reproductive process. The added experience of teaching - from home school with my children to medical students - has given me the ability to explain complicated concepts in understandable terms. Fueled by my passion for supporting healthy humans, I am excited to share my embodied knowledge with those who are on the same journey towards building thriving communities.

Website: Foundationalconcepts4mws.com

Instagram: @foundational.concepts4mws

Mentioned in this Episode

Compromised to Alchemized Podcast

Discussed in This Episode

Challenges in Midwifery Practice

Critical Thinking in Midwifery

Personal Work and Midwifery Skills

The Importance of Knowing Why

Humanizing Obstetrics

Defensibility & Autonomy in Birth Choices

The Obstetric Myth and Women's Power