Heart of Gaia
Midwifery Services
Proud to serve for all low-risk pregnancies
across the Rio Grande Valley
There are many options for pregnancy and birth care in the Rio Grande Valley, and no one option is a good fit for everyone. What makes Heart of Gaia different?
What is the Philosophy
of Pregnancy and Birth at Heart of Gaia?
Gaia is the mythical Greek goddess who birthed the earth. She embodies the strength and nobility we see in clients as they labor and give birth, and she is deeply intertwined with nature, creating new life within her, nurturing and growing it, and then delivering it into the world.
The imagery of the name "Heart of Gaia" can be whatever you want to see in it, but we see it in two beautiful different ways. Firstly, we see our clients as having the same strong and noble hearts as Gaia, and, secondly, we see our clients as being held deep in the heart of 'Mother Nature'.
We believe that a pregnant person's body and mind were both built to be gentle enough to grow new life from a tiny embryo, and yet strong enough to carry that life and birth the baby with perseverance and with power. We believe that our clients are able to make their own decisions about their pregnancies and births, and we support them in this with education and with respect for the decisions they make.
Is Out of Hospital Birth Safe?
Research shows that, if a pregnant person has prenatal care throughout pregnancy and delivers with a midwife (at home or in a birth center), the mortality risk to either the baby or the pregnant person is as low as it is for someone with comparable health who births in a hospital.
The risk of morbidity (medical problems) caused by the pregnancy and birth is lower for midwifery clients because the rates of interventions such as cesareans and assisted deliveries in those who plan an out of hospital birth are significantly lower. Medical emergencies do happen, even under the care of a midwife, but midwives are trained to spot problems early and transport to a hospital for additional help, and to treat the person until additional help is available or the problem is resolved. We cannot promise our clients an out-of-hospital birth, but we can promise that they will be given safe care throughout.
Above all else, the emotional side of birth with midwives generally far surpasses most births under obstetricical care. The way someone births their baby matters!
What is a Midwife?
A midwife is a skilled healthcare provider who supports clients during pregnancy, labor, birth and in the first few weeks postpartum. There are several different kinds of midwife in the USA, including:
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Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs), who train directly into midwifery with didactic training as well as an apprenticeship, and who thus have a deep knowledge of prenatal, intrapartum (during labor and birth) and postpartum care.
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Certified Nurse Midwives (CNMs), who first qualify as nurses and then specialize as midwives through didactic and clinical training, and who thus have a broad knowledge on all aspects of care from initiation to cessation of menstruation, though much of their care still revolves around pregnancy and birth.
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Lay Midwives, who train through an apprenticeship, and who again specialize in pregnancy, birth and postpartum care. Due to recent changes to the law, no new LMs will be licensed in Texas. On the border, some Lay Midwives are OBs who qualified in Mexico.
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In some states, midwives do not need to be licensed at all. Luckily, this is not the case for Texas.
What is a Montrice?
A montrice is a midwife who provides all of the pregnancy care they normally would, such as providing holistic pregnancy and birth education, monitoring the pregnancy with lab work, ultrasounds, palpation, measurement and listening to fetal heart rates, and helping with physical and emotional wellbeing. The difference between montrice services and midwifery services is that a montrice client is planning from the outset to deliver in a hospital setting, either with the midwife there in the role of a doula, with a different doula of their choice, or without a doula there at all. Montrice clients would normally see an OB alongside the midwife so that they have an established relationship and birth plan in place before labor.
“Childbirth should be a natural event that occasionally needs medical help, not a medical event that occasionally happens naturally.”
Kemi Johnson
What is a Doula?
A doula helps care for people at 'challenging times' during their lives. They are not responsible for any medical care or decisions, and most are not medically trained. There are many different kinds of doulas:
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Labor and birth doulas help care for the pregnant person and any support people with them, primarily during labor and birth and in the couple of hours after birth, but also provide support with non-medical issues in the weeks before or after the birth. They would normally go to a laboring person before the midwife is called or the individual transfers to birth center or hospital, and provide continuous support until after the birth. Most will support people through a miscarriage, and many will provide support through abortions.
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Postpartum doulas help families in the early days and weeks after a birth, with household chores, simple baby care, helping older siblings adjust, and other things that may be needed.
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End of life doulas support individuals and their loved ones as their death approaches, and are often there to provide comfort at the time of death and to those left behind afterwards.
Midwifery and Doula Care
Why Heart of Gaia?
Birth Center
Even if you plan to give birth at home, you'll attend the birth center for almost all of your appointments (see FAQs for more details), and you're in for a treat! The birth center is in a beautiful location, surrounded by trees and a working garden. There's a room for family and friends, an office for appointments, two gorgeous birth rooms, and an artificial beach for either appointments or births... and we have a third indoor birth room (our 'room of requirement') coming soon. The birth center is licensed through the Texas Department of Health and Human Services. There are lots of photographs in the Gallery, but here's a sneak peek of where your baby might be born:
Mother's Nature
The beautiful cherry tree has powerful roots, strong enough to crack open hard ground.
This birth room brings the outdoors indoors. Here, you can be surrounded by Mother Nature's beauty as you work with a Mother's Nature to bring your baby earthside. We want nothing but the best for our clients, and so have installed a stunning custom-made clear birth pool that allows your supporters to see the baby's birth, and enables you to get gorgeous birth photos or video. (Privacy screens can be added if you prefer.) To aid positioning during labor, the cherry tree can be used to support you in a birth sling, and the room also has a walk-in bathroom with a shower that can help with pain-relief.
Crowning Moment
As your baby crowns, labor nears its end. You will soon be crowned "life-giver".
In this room, you will labor with the dignity you deserve, leaving everyone around you filled with awe at your grace and your power. The specially designed and custom-made 'birth throne' is a new take on a traditional birth stool, and allows for ideal positioning for the delivery of your baby. The decor is beautifully regal, with wainscoting, damask wallpaper and champagne-gold accents, and makes for unique and stunning birth photographs. The room has a walk-in bathroom with a shower, which can be used to relieve pain, and an inflatable birth pool can be available.
Ride the Waves
As the lighthouse stands strong for those in the waters, so will you.
This is the most unique birth space we have, and that's saying something! Walking back here, you'll be transported to your own private beach, with golden sand between your toes (and nowhere else!) and hints of a relaxing horizon in the distance. To help with positioning during labor, we have a custom static windsurfer on our mini ocean, and of course have beach toys for children. And what is a beach without water? You can give birth in the birth pool, or just relax there before moving to the double sun-lounger for the birth. This is a fun and relaxing space, and makes for a wonderful story and pictures!
Jen is very knowledgable and skilled, and works hard to help clients understand everything that's happening during a pregnancy, ensuring they can make informed choices about their lifestyle as well as their medical care. Group prenatals (see below) generally run at 90 minutes in length, and individual prenatals at 30 minutes or more, and she never keeps clients waiting more than a couple of minutes. There's ample opportunity to discuss emotional wellbeing as well as physical wellbeing, for example, and to ask all the questions you might have.
Almost every decision is left in the hands of clients, such as whether or not to have formal gestational diabetes screening, with education provided so that clients fully understand the options available.
If you're looking for a birth center birth, Heart of Gaia is unrivaled. We have beautiful and unique rooms, space for extended family including a stove, microwave, kettle and fridge, birth pools in every room, and tools for helping with positioning, such as a yoga sling.
For both birth center and home birth care, we offer nitrous oxide for support through the harder contractions, and all the equipment you might hope for, including a range of medications. We're also happy to start providing care earlier in labor than some other providers, though we do discuss the pros and cons of this choice with our clients.
As with all of her care, Jen's primary goal is to provide safe, low-intervention care where the client is respected, regardless of their choices.
Jen brings a wealth of knowledge to her doula care, and so she can ensure that you understand what's happening and what your options are at every stage of labor and birth. Her position as a midwife will often mean that fellow midwives, nurses and even obstetricians are more open to considering 'allowing' her clients to make decisions they might normally be unwilling to entertain, and her English accent sometimes goes a long way in helping with this, too!
Jen's attention to her clients' needs also means that she can and does help where appropriate, but can also gently guide other support people to fill the needs that the client has for these specific people, as they often need that closeness and intimacy.
We're excited to offer the option of group prenatal appointments! Each appointment will have content we'll cover together, and then a series of individual mini-appointments to check on you and your Baby, with folk bringing and sharing potluck snacks and asking and sharing advice about all things pregnancy- and baby-related while we cycle through these mini appointments! Non-clients are welcome to attend these sessions for information on pregnancy, birth, and postpartum, though clinical care is not offered to these individuals. For more details, see the Midwifery Care and Yoga pages.
Group Prenatals
