We were lucky to catch up with P Fadwah Halaby recently and have shared our conversation below.
P Fadwah, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?
The defining moment for me in my career was when I made the conscious decision to get pregnant with my first child and forego my plans for Medical School. I had been preparing for Medical School, had taken the MCAT test and had applied to several schools. I was accepted for an interview in Indiana, but couldn’t imagine living there again (I grew up there and couldn’t wait to leave as a teen!). This ultimately sent me in the direction of Nursing School and Nurse-Midwifery. I have at times regretted the lack of power and control that NOT being the Doctor entails, but have never regretted my training as a midwife and my role at birth. There was also a defining time period for me which includes those early years of exploring midwifery, childbirth, and the American cultural paradigm surrounding birth. During this time I gave birth to my first child – unassisted – not because I believed that was the way to do it, but because I did not have another choice as I knew I did not want to be in the hospital to give birth. Now, at least in Florida, Medicaid pays for midwives and home birth, so others do not have to make the hard choice to birth alone. For some folks though, birthing alone is still their only option when they have certain risk factors that prevent home birth midwives from being able to care for them legally – like multiple previous cesareans, or breech or twin births.
The last defining moment was assisting my first person birthing at home. Besides my own births (all 6 at home), I was privileged to assist an acquaintance with her birth in the year or so after I had my first child. This woman did not have prenatal care, was planning a ‘free’ or unassisted birth and asked me to come over to help since I had given birth once and was studying birth. I was not advertising my services as a midwife, but agreed to be with her – more like a doula. Once the baby was starting to emerge, it became obvious that she was coming feet first. I looked up this variation in my trusty copy of Spiritual Midwifery (Ina May’s first book – 1/2 birth stories/1/2 midwifery manual) and we had a breech baby! The birth happened easily and quickly with baby transitioning well – best case scenario. However, the beauty of this situation is that it informed my trust of birth and women’s bodies forever. I have an innate trust of birth and women’s bodies which allows me to be willing to learn physiologic breech birth (when baby comes in the head up position with buttocks, knees or feet coming out first) and attend them at home (since there are almost no providers willing to assist women for vaginal breech birth in the hospital). This has been huge in these times when women are beginning to take back control of birth and their birthing bodies and want to birth their babies vaginally in spite of the minimal risks with breech or multiple previous cesareans.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I started Midwife360 when I could no longer handle working in the hospital or a typical OB practice. I was not made for 5-10 minute prenatal visits and the hospital birthing culture of unnecessary inductions and cesarean sections. I had witnessed over 1600 births and assisted at probably 1000 cesareans and my body was breaking down from the stress. I received a surprise child support payment completely unexpected and at the critical moment to allow me to open Midwife360. My original intent was to be able to perform birth in people’s homes, a birth center, and at the hospital. I have worked hard to open a birth center in the last 8 years off and on, and may now be aligning with a new, local center to provide birth center and hospital birth – more to come on that in the near future. Our commitment to our clients is to assist them to have their baby in the location of their choice, with their preferred provider, and in the manner of their choosing. As Certified Nurse Midwives (2 of us have the Autonomous designation on our license) we have the leeway to take on more complicated cases than most home birth midwives. We can write prescriptions, coordinate care with other providers and assist with the more complex physiologic births that are the case with a history of multiple cesareans, or other factors that can complicate the birth story.
We recommend all of our birthing clients to take charge of their diet and lifestyle in order to have the least amount of risk in their pregnancy and birth. We advise our clients to establish themselves with a chiropractor, acupuncture physician, and massage therapist comfortable with pregnancy and to take a hypnosis for childbirth preparation course – like Hypnobabies or Blissborn. We also strongly advise that they hire a doula to take their childbirth journey with them. We love to involve families and welcome siblings at the birth.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
My market is looking for high touch, low tech, capable, knowledgeable, evidence based woman’s healthcare. They want someone who will listen to them, honoring and respecting that they are the experts of their own bodies. This comes naturally to me. I have honed the ability to give care based on a true model of shared decision making led by the client and based on the best evidence. I have been able to cultivate a team of midwives who share these values and give the same attentive and client centered care. We have not always been able to cross the finish line with every client who chooses birth at home, but there are many who appreciate the effort and intention Midwife360 brings to the table in order to have a medically safe and satisfying experience even when circumstances deviate from the original birth plan. We have had generous clients who freely share their wonderful and often life changing birth stories – and this is the best recommendation we could ask for. We get repeat clients frequently and friends and relatives of past clients as well. We do miss the opportunity to transfer into the hospital with our clients, and have been working hard to close the gap with hospital transfers. We are hopeful that we can announce hospital privileges sometime this year.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
I am a Gratitude graduate ML63 (Masterful Living class 63) and I credit that program of self actualization and self realization for expanding my consciousness and increasing my success in business. I learned the value of punctuality and positive reinforcement as a team strategy. I learned the power of present moment awareness, focus, gratitude, and humility. I learned how to be authentic and loving toward everyone and everything. And most of all I learned that we are all connected – I find every human interaction interesting and full of possibilities. I believe in positive affirmations. The Presence Process has helped me integrate unhealed issues from my past and allowed me to live a more free existence with endless possibilities. In general, meditation and self discipline combined with having an open mind are what has kept me going. And as in everything else in life, maintaining a healthy diet and lifestyle allows one to do almost anything else!
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.midwife360.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/midwife360/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/midwife360
- Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/p-fadwah-halaby-53190a9b
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/PFadwah
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8VH3jMPueE3ymr10tYmUQg
Image Credits
Anthony Bethel (waterbirth photo) Argon Agency for headshots and employee photos