Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How can I schedule an appointment for a consultation/tour?
A: You can call our office at (786) 953-6534 and we will be happy to schedule your appointment over the phone.

Q: What is a birthing center?
A: A birthing center is usually a freestanding healthcare facility where pregnant folks receive prenatal care and give birth. The staff comprises midwives, nurses, and birth assistants who provide a home-like environment and are skilled at attending natural births.

Q: Can my family be with me when I give birth?
A: We view families (in whatever way you define family) as integral to the birth process. We welcome all families: married, partnered, single, gay, straight, traditional, and everything in between. During birthing, we find that clients feel safe and comforted by having their loved ones around them in labor and babies deserve to be born into a community of people who love and support them. Your family (including other children) and friends are always welcome at your prenatal visits and at your birth. A supported and welcomed family means a supported client.

Q: When can you feel the baby from the outside?
A: Most pregnant people can feel the baby’s movements between 18-22 weeks, but detecting movements from the outside takes longer. A partner or loved one may feel the baby’s kicks or jabs as early as 20 weeks, but sometimes it can take until 28 or even 30 weeks.

Every pregnancy is different. When someone can feel the baby from the outside depends on the pregnant person’s weight, location of the placenta, and position of the baby.

Q: How long after water breaks do I give birth?
A: The time from membranes rupturing to your baby’s birth varies widely. As long as your water breaks after 36 weeks, it may be a day or two or many hours until your baby arrives. Sometimes water doesn’t break until late in labor or during the pushing phase.

Q: Are you in-network providers?
A: Yes. The birth center is currently in network with Aetna, Cigna, Florida Blue / Blue Cross Blue Shield, United, Molina and select Medicaid MCOs(Managed Care Organizations). When you come in for a tour and consultation we will complete a verification of benefits, so that we can provide you with detailed information about what portion of your prenatal care costs and facility fees will be covered. We make an effort to individualize every aspect of your care, including billing. Once you are a client, our Administrator will meet with you to discuss your insurance coverage and financial situation and, together, you will create payment plan and schedule.If you do not see your insurance company listed here, that does not mean that you can only get out-of-network coverage. Talk with our billing coordinator about requesting an in-network exception with your carrier.

Q: Does insurance cover home births?
A: The Magnolia team attends a limited number of home births. Since Magnolia is in network with several insurance companies, home birth can be covered the same way birth center birth is. If your insurance is out-of-network, we can submit a claim to your insurance company for reimbursement.

Q: I've been seeing another provider for my care, but now feel that i want an out of hospital birth. Can i transfer to your practice?
A: We are always willing to consider clients who want to transfer care. Transfers after 28 weeks are possible and are evaluated on a case by case basis. We require that you bring a complete copy of your prenatal record at your initial consultation so that we may review your prenatal history.

Q: How much does birth cost?
A: Since all of your care during and after pregnancy is bundled and billed as a package, it’s difficult to say how much only the birth itself costs. Each client’s coverage is evaluated on a case by case basis.

Q: How much does an average pregnancy cost with insurance?
A: All of your care during and after pregnancy is billed as one package to your insurance company after you give birth. This includes prenatal appointments, labor, birth, and postpartum follow-ups. Your out-of-pocket expenses will depend on whether you’ve met your deductible and how much your coinsurance is.

Q: How much does a water birth cost?
A: The only additional cost for a water birth at Magnolia is the tub rental fee of $100, which covers the liner and hose. All of the other costs are the same for our childbirth services.

Q: How much does prenatal care cost?
A: Magnolia is in-network with most insurance companies, so your responsibility in paying for prenatal care varies depending on your plan. If you have out-of-network or no insurance, then we calculate a self-pay rate based on a discount, which is due by 36 weeks.

Q: How much does a midwife cost locally?
A: Because Magnolia is in-network with most insurance companies, the out-of-pocket expenses for midwifery services vary depending on your plan. However, if your insurance is out-of-network, as is it with independent community midwives, the self-pay fee for childbirth services tends to be between $5,900-7,500 which is typically due by 36 weeks.

Q: What is a doula?
A: A doula is a trained individual who provides physical, emotional, and informational support to a birthing person before, during, or after childbirth. Doulas do not perform clinical tasks, but they help expectant and new parents have safe, memorable, and empowering experiences.

Q: What is an antepartum doula?
A: Antepartum means “before birth,” so antepartum doulas offer professional, compassionate support to expectant parents during pregnancy. Families benefit from an antepartum doula if they are experiencing a difficult pregnancy, a healthy pregnancy with overwhelming circumstances, or one with medical limitations.

 An antepartum doula also supports individuals with high-risk pregnancies, such as those on bed rest. Other folks who might benefit from an antepartum doula include:

• Teen mothers

• Single women

• Rape victims who are pregnant

• Expectant parents with severe morning sickness

Q: What is a birth doula?
A: A birth doula attends to the laboring person’s emotional and physical needs by using massage, position changes, and visualization to help labor progress as comfortably as possible. A birth doula joins a laboring person at home, at the birth center, or at the hospital and stays a few hours after the birth.

Q: What is a postpartum doula?
A: A postpartum doula eases the transition into parenthood by providing support after the baby’s birth. While not a nanny or baby nurse, a postpartum doula is knowledgeable about postpartum recovery, breastfeeding, and newborn care. Services range from a single visit for information and advice to overnight care for a month.

Q: Do I need a doula?
A: Yes. If you’re pregnant and aiming for childbirth with minimal interventions, having doula support will help you achieve the birth experience you want. While it’s not required, we recommend all Magnolia Birth House clients have a doula. Doulas are an integral part of your birth team.

Q: If I'm hiring a midwife, do I need a doula?
A: Absolutely. A doula is highly recommended, no matter where or with whom you are giving birth. The skills set a doula and a midwife offer are vastly different, albeit complementary. Your doula's role is to provide emotional support and physical comfort measures, while your midwife will provide clinical care. In the event of a transfer to the hospital, your midwife will facilitate your transfer but will not stay for the duration of your birth. Your doula will provide continuity of care until a couple of hours after your baby is born. We highly recommend BOTH doula AND midwifery care. One can not replace the other.

Q: How do I find a doula?
A: All Magnolia clients have access to hiring a doula through our sister company, The Gathering Place. We offer a no-cost interview and a large staff to simplify the hiring process. The variety of doulas allows clients to find a perfect match for their individual needs.

 You can also search for a doula on your own by conducting an online search. Be sure to choose a doula who is certified in your area of need.

Q: How much does a doula cost?
A: Fees for birth doulas from the community are based on experience, and locally tend to range from $700 - 3,000. Postpartum doula fees are by the hour and range from $25-$55.

Q: Are doulas covered by insurance?
A: Private insurance companies do not cover doulas. However, there are select Medicaid HMOs that cover doula care, and we are in-network with some of those HMOs. If you’re planning to use a doula and you have Medicaid, you may be able to get a doula at no cost.

Q: Is a doula worth it?
A: For birthing parents who have doula support, research shows many benefits, including an increased chance of a spontaneous vaginal birth. Those who use a doula are also less likely to have:

• Pain medication

• Epidurals

• Vacuum- or forceps-assisted births

• C-sections

• Negative feelings about childbirth

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Q: What is a midwife?
A: A midwife is a trained health professional who cares for women before, during, and after childbirth. Midwives focus on the safety and well-being of pregnant people and their babies, and they also provide well-person care, such as pap smears, annual exams, and family planning.

Q: What is a Certified Nurse-Midwife?
A: A Certified Nurse-Midwife (CNM) is a licensed health professional who has completed an accredited nursing program and then received additional education to be a midwife. CNMs must pass a national certification exam and earn national certification through the American Midwifery Certification Board.

Q: What does a midwife do?
A: Midwives are most well known for their expertise in low-risk, normal childbirth. They provide individualized, holistic care to women during pregnancy, labor, birth, and postpartum recovery. Midwives are trained to assess risk and recognize when something is abnormal and requires obstetric care.

Since midwives specialize in all aspects of women’s health, they also care for women before conception and provide ongoing well-person care throughout women’s lives.

Q: Can a midwife deliver a baby?
A: Yes! Midwives are experts when it comes to birthing parents’ needs during labor and childbirth. Their goal is a safe, empowering birth experience that ends with a healthy mom and healthy baby. Depending on their practice, midwives deliver babies in homes, birth centers, and hospitals.

Q: Is a midwife a doctor?
A: No. A midwife’s training, approach, and scope of practice are different from a physician’s. Prenatal care with midwives is unique because midwives believe that pregnancy and childbirth are normal life events, and should be treated as healthy physiologic processes.

Obstetricians follow the medical model. They have training as surgeons and can attend to all the complications that might occur during pregnancy and birth.

Q: What is the difference between a midwife and a doula?
A: A midwife provides clinical services, monitoring the physical, psychological, and social well-being of the parent throughout the childbearing cycle. A doula offers emotional support and physical comfort measures. The skillsets of doulas and midwives are different but complementary.

Q: How do I find a midwife?
A: To begin seeing a midwife at Magnolia, the first step is to complete the online form and schedule a free consultation. All of our midwives are licensed and passionate about serving families in Miami.

inside Magnolia Birth Center

Q: What is water birth?
A: Water birth is when you deliver your baby in a birthing tub. Some birthing parents prefer to labor in the warm water and get out for the birth. In either case, water immersion is one of the best strategies for coping with pain during labor and birth.

Q: Is water birth safe?
A: Yes, water birth is safe for birthing parents and causes no inherent harm to babies. Research shows that as long as the water is the correct temperature and the equipment is clean, water birth poses no additional risks to childbirth.

Q: How does water birth work?
A: At Magnolia, we have inflatable birth pools, not installed tubs. Each client gets a new hose and liner, guaranteeing there is a sanitary, disposable barrier between the birthing parent and the tub. You may labor and give birth in the water, or you can use the pool only during labor.

Q: Why water birth?
A: In addition to providing pain relief, water immersion during labor has been shown to reduce anxiety, lead to better fetal positioning in the pelvis, and help the cervix to dilate more rapidly. Since babies live in fluid in the womb, water birth provides a similar environment for them at birth.

Q: Is water birth less painful?
A: Water immersion is helpful for coping with contractions, and the buoyancy can reduce the birthing parent’s perception of pain. This reduces the chance of transferring to a hospital for pain relief. Research shows that water immersion is equal to or better than narcotics for pain relief.

Q: How do I induce labor naturally?
A: Natural induction methods can be helpful if the 42-week mark is approaching and you are trying to avoid a medical induction. Some tools you or your midwife may use to jumpstart labor include exercise, nipple stimulation, acupuncture, chiropractic care, sex, raspberry leaf tea, and castor oil.

Q: How do I prepare for a natural birth?
A: One of the most important things you can do to prepare for an unmedicated birth is to educate yourself. You should participate in childbirth education classes that focus on natural birth and read the resources your care team recommends.

Other helpful strategies to prepare for natural birth are staying physically active, receiving chiropractic care, learning about movement and positions during natural birth, and developing confidence in your natural birth plan.

Q: When is a woman most fertile?
A: A woman is most fertile around the time of ovulation, or when an ovary releases an egg. The fertile window begins a few days before ovulation. Signs include:

• Increased libido

• Discharge that resembles egg whites

• A soft, high, and open cervix

• A slight rise in basal body temperature

• Mild cramping

Q: What is preconception?
A: Preconception is the time before conceiving. Oftentimes, people who are planning to conceive might focus on improving their health and lifestyle before becoming pregnant. At Magnolia, we offer a free preconception check-up for prospective clients who have questions about nutrition, exercise, medical history, or fertility.

Q: What is prenatal care?
A: Prenatal care is the health care you receive while you’re pregnant. Beginning around 10-12 weeks, these appointments allow our midwives to provide important medical care, but also to develop a trusting relationship with you and give you time to ask questions.

Q: What happens during a prenatal care office visit?
A: At every prenatal appointment, we will take your blood pressure and weight, and perform visual urinalysis on your urine. We also spend time getting to know each other, allowing 30-45 minutes for discussion. You can ask questions and discuss options without feeling rushed.

Toward the end of your first trimester, we will be able to hear the baby’s heartbeat with a handheld Doppler. Around 20 weeks, we’ll start taking your fundal height measurement, which is the distance in centimeters from your pubic bone to the top of your uterus. During the second and third trimesters, we will check for swelling and palpate your belly to monitor the baby’s position.

Q: Why is prenatal care important?
A: Even for low-risk, healthy expectant parents, prenatal care is important because we continually assess risk, and we recognize when something is abnormal. If a client’s pregnancy becomes moderate- to high-risk at any point, we fully transfer her care to an obstetrician or provide collaborative care.

Personalized prenatal care appointments provide the opportunity for education and access to the resources you need to have a healthy pregnancy and an empowering birth. Our goal is always a safe birth experience that ends with a healthy mom and healthy baby.

Q: Can I get in trouble for no prenatal care?
A: There are no laws in the United States that require medical treatment during pregnancy, so legally, you won’t get in trouble for not receiving prenatal care. However, there are certainly consequences for anyone who chooses to forgo prenatal care or doesn’t have access to it.

Progressing through a pregnancy and giving birth without appropriate prenatal care means the expectant parent and the baby are more susceptible to risks if complications develop and go undetected.

Q: Am I required to do prenatal testing?
A: In many ways informed consent is the cornerstone of midwifery care and an important part of what separates the services midwives provide from those of other maternity care providers. By legal and ethical obligation we must give our clients complete information about the boundaries, limitations and benefits of the services we provide. A client cannot truly make a decision about her care if she does not fully know her range of options and the consequences of each choice. Informed consent as it applies to medical care refers to the full disclosure of information to a client to facilitate knowledgeable decision-making. Essential to the concept of informed consent is that we outline the nature of the procedure, list reasonable alternatives, relevant risks, benefits and uncertainties associated with both the alternatives and the primary option, assess your understanding and ultimately accept the decision you make. there are a variety of blood tests and screenings that are commonly performed during pregnancy. Compliance with 100% of them is not required for us to provide you with safe, high quality care. each test/screening will be discussed with you in detail and you will have the opportunity to make informed decisions about what is best for your and your family.

Q: Is giving birth at a birth center safe?
A: There have been several major studies of birth center births in the last thirty-five years. The most recent national study of birthing centers found that out of the women who planned to give birth at the birth center when their labor began, most (84%) ended up giving birth at the birth center. Of those transported, most were done for non-emergency reasons like prolonged labor. Less than 1% (n=140) of the study sample (15,574) transferred to the hospital due to an emergency in labor or postpartum. Additionally, one of the most important findings of the study was that 9 out of 10 women (94%) who entered labor planning to deliver at the birthing center, were successful at having a vaginal birth. This means that the C-Section rate for low-risk women who choose to give birth at a birth center was 6% - a staggering difference when compared to the national C-Section rate of 32.3% and the local C-Section rate of 49.1%

Q: How does the midwife know when things are no longer "normal" or low risk?
A: Midwives are acutely sensitive to any variations of normal or any signs and symptoms of complications that may manifest during labor. Knowledge of the physical and emotional histories of the women in our care and attention to detail during prenatal appointments also prepares us with knowledge needed to recognize what is abnormal for an individual client. A mixture of lawful practice and intuition in combination with the kind of knowledge that can only be gained through experience, we are able to offer our clients care that is sensitive to even small changes and variations that can occur during labor and delivery.

Q: What if there's an emergency or complication while I'm in labor or after the birth?
A: Licensed midwives are educated in emergency care procedures, to administer prescription drugs and to provide collaborative care under physician supervision for at-risk patients in any birth setting. Despite popular beliefs to the contrary, true obstetric emergencies are extremely rare. However, when they occur, we do everything possible to protect you and your baby’s safety. Under some circumstances, hospital transfer is a necessary component of maintaining a healthy birth outcome. In the case of an emergency transfer, we utilize the services of the nearest hospital, during which your care would be supervised by the covering obstetrician. In a non-emergency situation you have the option of traveling to hospitals in South Florida where physicians we collaborate with have admitting privileges: Jackson North Medical Center, North Shore Medical Center or Jackson Memorial Hospital. In both cases the midwife will accompany you the the hospital and someone from your birth team, most likely your doula will remain by your side until your new baby arrives. 

Q: Is water birth safe?
A: Yes, water birth is safe for birthing parents and causes no inherent harm to babies. Research shows that as long as the water is the correct temperature and the equipment is clean, water birth poses no additional risks to childbirth.

Q: Do you accept clients with risk factors?
A:  Midwives specialize in caring for normal low-risk women meaning we are trained to work with women whose pregnancy and births exhibit few or no risk factors. By definition low-risk excludes categories of women who have conditions that predispose them to medical management during pregnancy and birth for their own safety and that their baby. We perform a thorough history and physical and maintain an ongoing risk assessment during prenatal care. This allows us to establish a baseline that we can reference later in your pregnancy and enables us to determine any health areas that might be of concern as your pregnancy progresses. It will also allow us the opportunity to implement preventative measures with a potential concern before an actual problem arises. Hand in hand with the history and physical the initial risk screening during the first prenatal visits is an essential component of providing quality care. Risk screening allows us to provide guidance in anticipation of future problems & concerns.  
 
As a result of the many physical changes that occur in a woman’s body during pregnancy, conditions which were “borderline” prior to pregnancy can quickly escalate during pregnancy when unaddressed. Additionally many things that are found to be normal during a pre-pregnancy physical can become abnormal after pregnancy has begun.  In select moderate-risk cases, a collaborative  care management plan can be created. Signed by the patient, midwife and physician, the plan will identify specific guidelines for management strategies and treatment, as well as criteria for discontinuing the collaborative management agreement. This arrangement is especially useful for normally healthy mothers and their babies who are experiencing temporary moderate-risk problems that resolve during the course of the pregnancy. 

Feel free to email: info@magnoliabirthhouse.com or call 786.953.6534 to connect with our team and learn more.  We look forward to providing you a joyful birth.