How Did COVID affect home birth?
COVID was crazy if not devastating for all of us. We are honored that we were able to use our skills, business, and calling to serve our community during a great time of need. For a while at the peak of COVID panic, it seemed no one wanted to deliver in the hospital and no one wanted to deliver alone, which was the fear in the middle of constantly-changing hospital policies in the past years. Many of these restrictions have lifted now, and not everyone is a good candidate for out-of-hospital birth. To keep home birth safe, one should be considered low risk, educate themselves, train on how to cope with natural labor, eat impeccably well, and exercise. Additionally, no one should be pushed into choosing a location out of fear, not even home birth. We are grateful for modern medicine, obstetrics, and for our hospitals that are working so hard right now. However, there have always been viruses in the hospitals. There has always been a great chance of surgical birth when choosing a hospital birth, and it has always been a possibility that surgery would take place without your partner. Please consider what has truly changed and what is the same. Home birth is beautiful, but it is not for everyone.
We are out-of-network with most insurances and do not file your insurance up front. We can, however give you a super-bill after the birth has taken place and the fee has been paid so you can try for reimbursement.
-Most Christian Health Plans and/or faith-based health co-ops cover us 100%!
How Do I Select a Midwife?
Finding the midwife that is right for you is very important. We recommend hiring a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) for your home birth as they are the experts in out-of-hospital birth and they carry the national credential from The North American Registry of Midwives. In SC, in order to legally practice, a midwife must be licensed by SC DHEC. Jennifer Lucas O’Briant is certified and licensed by both of these organizations. Both organizations have listings of their certified/licensed midwives. We recommend setting up an interview with a couple of different midwives to see who’s a good fit for your family. It is crucial in a home birth setting, that you have a provider that can honor the sacred space of birthing in your peaceful rhythm while things are normal, and possess the life-saving skills it requires to step in when things become abnormal. Jennifer maintains constant training for life-saving skills that we hope we never have to use, but arms herself with them just in case. Schedule today to see if you and Columbia Midwifery are a good fit.
Will My Insurance or
Medicaid Pay for a Home Birth?
We are out-of-network with most insurances and do not file your insurance up front. We can, however give you a super-bill after the birth has taken place and the fee has been paid so you can try for reimbursement.
-Most Christian Health Plans and/or faith-based health co-ops cover us 100%!!!!!
We hope to offer it in the future, but at this time, Columbia Midwifery is unfortunately not a Medicaid Provider. If Medicaid is the absolute deciding factor on where you give birth, here are some options for you in relation to the Midlands: There are birth centers in the Charleston, Spartanburg, and Greenville areas that do take Medicaid and have either CPM or CNM midwives. Lori Gibson and Sheila Dell are Medicaid provider home birth midwives, call them to ask about availability. Prisma Parkridge has a practice of Certified Nurse Midwives where you can deliver in hospital with a CNM as your provider. Prisma Health Richland is the Baby Friendly hospital of the area with the highest level of care for newborns and Maternal Fetal Medicine. USC School of Medicine has skilled physicians that may be supportive of VBAC and deliver at Prisma Health Richland, especially with a private doula at your side. Many women do qualify for Medicaid and are still able to afford a home birth. So contact us today to see if arrangements can be made. Even when paying out-of-pocket for your midwife, Medicaid is still helpful to pay for labs, ultrasounds, doctor’s visits, prescriptions, hospital care if necessary, etc.