Midwifery in East TN

Specialties CNM

Published

Specializes in Med/Surg, Tele, Peds, LDRP.

I am a CNM hopeful and I am interested in connecting with CNMs in my region to try to shadow and want to possibly train as a birth assistant. When I was living in GA, I went to a free standing birth center to have my son and they were going to hire me when I wanted to go back to work, but we had to move shortly after that when my husband lost his job. I have yet to find any CNM in the tri cities, which is discouraging. Ive just started working in L&D and the c section rate is 35% at my hospital. It is a very "medical" minded area. I was told by fellow nurses they rarely see patients come into the hospital in spontaneous labor and if they come in at 39 weeks they WILL be admitted and induced.

I just applied to an RN to BSN program which I hope to start by January and it should take just over a year to complete. After that, I plan to apply to Frontier School of Midwifery. Any suggestions on locating CNMs in my community? Im worried if there are none or very few, if my family remains in this area I wouldnt be able to find a preceptor to work under. There is a free standing birth center in knoxville which is about 1.5 to 2 hours away....that is the closest that I know of.

My other question is for those who worked as an OB nurse before entering midwifery....how can I try to block out the bad and focus on the important things I need to learn? How can I advocate for my patients when they dont know any better than to do along with what the doctor says? Is it pretty much too late once they come in? Usually their mind is made up and they just want the baby out....the time to effectively educate is prenatally...are my hands tied by the time they come in to have the baby? We also get a ton of drug addicted moms. Its heartbreaking.

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