Meet the Midwife – Jennifer Ross CM, CPM
I am nationally certified by the North American Registry of Midwives (NARM) as a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) and credentialed by the state of New Hampshire as a Certified Midwife (CM).
I earned my degree in midwifery from Midwives College of Utah where I graduated summa cum laude. In addition to my graduate courses, I completed more than 3,000 hours of hands-on clinical training with many talented midwives around the country. I was blessed to be able to work with families in Oregon, Wisconsin, and California during my time as a student.
I balance a natural, holistic approach to health with evidence-based findings from the most up-to-date research available. My practice is guided by the Midwives Model of Care©, which affirms you as the central decision maker regarding your health, pregnancy, birth, and child. I work to be a collaborative partner who helps to guide, advise, and advocate for your health and wellbeing during your childbearing years.
Our typical appointments will last an hour — several times longer than a typical OB visit! Spending so much time together enables us to connect on a deeper level, which allows me to truly listen to your needs and offer appropriate emotional support, information, options, and comprehensive clinical care tailored to you as a whole person.
Because I believe community involvement and advocacy are important for the continued growth of midwifery and its expanded accessibility, I have served on the board for the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives (NACPM) and as an officer in our state midwifery association New Hampshire Midwives Association and the American Student Midwives Association.
I am also a member of the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA), Maine Association of Certified Professional Midwives, and the California Association of Licensed Midwives.
I live in Dover, New Hampshire with my husband (who is my best friend and co-conspirator!), two fun-loving rescue mutts, and a gaggle of noisy chickens. I love spending time outdoors camping, hiking, and kayaking; growing food; cultivating community; and always continuing to learn.
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Read on to learn more about my journey to midwifery…
I was born at home, in an unmedicated natural birth, and I grew up in a small town in Montana. Though it was a great place to be a kid, my hometown certainly wasn’t (and isn’t) a diverse community, so I had a lot of learning to do. Thankfully, the 15 years I worked as a petrochemical engineer and project manager for multinational oil and gas companies — living in eleven different countries and working with people from dozens more — provided me with many amazing opportunities to broaden my worldview and become more culturally sensitive.
It was during the time I lived overseas that I was exposed to midwifery and birth as normal parts of a person’s life. I have to confess that prior to living abroad, I had never even HEARD of a midwife outside of old movies! If I’m honest, on a deep level, I thought birth was scary, definitely painful, and usually ended in an absolutely necessary C-section. Like many of us raised in the U.S., I was exposed to a constant stream of stories that made having a baby seem like a serious medical emergency. I remember a friend talking about hiring a doula and having a natural childbirth and I thought, “No way! I would want an epidural for sure! Why would you want that much pain?” Oh, how things can change when you learn better and see a different way!
In most of the places I worked around the world, midwives were seamlessly integrated into the healthcare system. Often, they were the sole providers available for people during their childbearing years. Where there were also OB/GYNs, they only saw the very small percentage of people who had true complications or very high-risk pregnancies.
When I was living in Equatorial Guinea, a tiny country on the west coast of Africa, I met an old woman on the path to town one day. As we walked and talked, she told me stories about every person we saw. It turned out that she was the person who had delivered all the babies in their village over the last 40-plus years. Then she dropped a bomb on me: in all that time, there had NEVER been a death in childbirth. My mind couldn’t comprehend that! In my understanding, having a baby was so dangerous that more than a third of birthing people needed surgical intervention to survive. I marveled that there, in a place with no running water or electricity, it was safer to have a baby than in a sterile, well-equipped hospital in the United States.
My engineer’s mind had to get to the bottom of this conundrum. As I started to read about birth in the U.S. and why it differed so much from birth in other countries, my questions multiplied: How could a country with excellent doctors and top-rated medical facilities, a country that spends more on maternity care than anywhere else in the world, be the only industrialized country with a consistently rising maternal mortality rate? Why is it safer to give birth in 46 other countries than it is in the United States? Why do we just accept that every day in the U.S., an average of two people die from pregnancy- or birth-related complications? Why are African American women, no matter their socioeconomic status, three to four times more likely to die from childbirth than non-Hispanic white women? And if roughly half of our population has a uterus, and more than 80% of us with a uterus will give birth at least once in our lives, how can we let these trends continue?!?
The more I read, the more outraged I became that people in the U.S. don’t have authentic choices about how and where we give birth. In fact, most of us don’t even know there are alternatives to hospital birth!
Around this same time, a treasured friend of mine told me she was studying to be a midwife. “Wait,” I thought. “There are still midwives in North America?” That was the tipping point for me, the moment I decided to follow in the footsteps of my smart, passionate friend and the generations of courageous birth keepers who have come before us.
It was a huge leap of faith to end my career as an engineer and enroll at Midwives College of Utah. My resolve was strengthened by my commitment to bring light and love to the world through the excellent care I provide to the families I serve.
To sum it all up, midwifery is my path because I believe in choices. I want each person to be able to choose the path that is right for their family, whatever that path is — there are no right answers here! I believe that childbearing is a normal, natural part of life. I believe that birth can be a joyful celebration of the strength of the birthing person and the unity of a new family. I believe that you are the best caretaker and decision maker for yourself and your baby. I am here to support you and your family, providing clinically accurate information to help you make the best decisions for your family.
If you’d like to schedule a free consultation or learn more say hello!
