Claudia Conn and Debbie Schneider are both Tennessee-licensed CPMs (Certified Professional Midwife) and work in partnership to provide full-scope midwifery as well as well-woman care, including Maya Abdominal Massage. We also generally have 2 full-time apprentices in the practice. Our strong birth team allows us to provide comprehensive 24/7 care and support to the families we serve. We cover an area extending out 1 to 2 hours around Chattanooga, Tennessee, and North Georgia into Atlanta.
Our practice is firmly based on informed choice. We believe women and families have the right to determine their own care in pregnancy and birth. With each 1-2 hour prenatal appointment we provide ample time and opportunity for education, discussion and relationship–building allowing for and nurturing confidence and trust.
Our practice is homebirth - based. Our approach to care is very woman- and family-centered. We encourage women to birth where and how they choose and offer a variety of options including waterbirth.
We believe that a woman’s body is designed to give birth and that pregnancy and birth are normal processes. Beyond that, we also believe that birth is meant to a be key event in a woman’s life and a joyful and celebratory family event.
Studies continue to consistently affirm that planned, attended homebirth is as safe or safer than hospital birth. Our practice, firmly based in the midwifery model of care, allows issues of safety to be appropriately addressed, while uplifting and honoring the wonderfully human and spiritual aspects of birth.
As you make your choices regarding your pregnancy and birth, please take the time to view this informative video.
Click on text for links to more information.
The Assault on Normal Birth: The OB Disinformation Campaign
Birth at Home - The New York Times - slide show
Birth Misconceptions - Myth or Fact
BMJ No 7068 General Practice Paper
The Big Push for Midwives Campaign
Childbearing year: Making informed decisions
Choosing a caregiver for birth - Q & A
Citizens for Midwifery - Information on newly published study on safety of homebirth with CPM's.
Corroborating Citations on the Safety of Homebirth
Education and Testing Experts Assess the CPM Credentialing Process
FAQ’s About Midwives and Midwifery Care
Five Things Every Woman Should Know Before Giving Birth
Going to the Hospital for Financial Reasons
A good midwife makes giving birth at home as safe as in hospital
Having a Baby? Ten Questions to Ask
The History of Midwifery and Childbirth - A Time Line
Home Birth and Out-of-Hospital Birth: Is it Safe?
Homebirth: Is it really a safe option?
Home Birth Matters by Sheila Kitzinger
Home Birth: The rest of the story
Homebirth: What Are the Issues?
How Childbirth Went Industrial: A Deconstruction by Henci Goer
Infant Mortality Rate - Rank Order (US = 42) - CIA - The World Factbook
Is Homebirth Safe? by Henci Goer
The Medical Literature on the Safety of Home Birth
Midwife TV - Homebirth slide show and Birth in the USA video
Monty Python - Hospital Sketch - Birth
Mothering Magazine -- There's no Place Like Home
Mothering Magazine -- Homebirth under fire: What the headlines don't say
Mothering Magazine -- Reasons to choose homebirth
My Best Birth - Cindy Crawford discusses her birth
Questions to ask your Care Provider
Questions to Ask a Homebirth Midwife
The Rights of Childbearing Women
The Safety of Homebirth: The Farm Study
The Six Care Practices that Support Normal Birth
Stand and Deliver - Better Is Not Good Enough
Stand and Deliver - 10 Responses to ACOG’s Statement on Home Birth
Settings and care practices - Q & A
Technology in Birth: First Do No Harm by Marsden Wagner, M.D.
What to Ask When Deciding Where to Have Your Baby
When Research is Flawed: Critiques of Influential Research Studies by Henci Goer
Why Waterbirth - A Gentle Beginning for a New Life
The Rights of Childbearing Women
1. Every woman has the right to health care before, during and after pregnancy and childbirth.
2. Every woman and infant has the right to receive care that is consistent with current scientific evidence about benefits and risks.* Practices that have been found to be safe and beneficial should be used when indicated. Harmful, ineffective or unnecessary practices should be avoided. Unproven interventions should be used only in the context of research to evaluate their effects.
3. Every woman has the right to choose a midwife or a physician as her maternity care provider. Both caregivers skilled in normal childbearing and caregivers skilled in complications are needed to ensure quality care for all.
4. Every woman has the right to choose her birth setting from the full range of safe options available in her community, on the basis of complete, objective information about benefits, risks and costs of these options.*
5. Every woman has the right to receive all or most of her maternity care from a single caregiver or a small group of caregivers, with whom she can establish a relationship. Every woman has the right to leave her maternity caregiver and select another if she becomes dissatisfied with her care.* (Only second sentence is a legal right.)
6. Every woman has the right to information about the professional identity and qualifications of those involved with her care, and to know when those involved are trainees.*
7. Every woman has the right to communicate with caregivers and receive all care in privacy, which may involve excluding nonessential personnel. She also has the right to have all personal information treated according to standards of confidentiality.*
8. Every woman has the right to receive maternity care that identifies and addresses social and behavioral factors that affect her health and that of her baby.** She should receive information to help her take the best care of herself and her baby and have access to social services and behavioral change programs that could contribute to their health.
9. Every woman has the right to full and clear information about benefits, risks and costs of the procedures, drugs, tests and treatments offered to her, and of all other reasonable options, including no intervention.* She should receive this information about all interventions that are likely to be offered during labor and birth well before the onset of labor.
10. Every woman has the right to accept or refuse procedures, drugs, tests and treatments, and to have her choices honored. She has the right to change her mind.* (Please note that this established legal right has been challenged in a number of recent cases.)
11. Every woman has the right to be informed if her caregivers wish to enroll her or her infant in a research study. She should receive full information about all known and possible benefits and risks of participation; and she has the right to decide whether to participate, free from coercion and without negative consequences.*
12. Every woman has the right to unrestricted access to all available records about her pregnancy, labor, birth, postpartum care and infant; to obtain a full copy of these records; and to receive help in understanding them, if necessary.*
13. Every woman has the right to receive maternity care that is appropriate to her cultural and religious background, and to receive information in a language in which she can communicate.*
14. Every woman has the right to have family members and friends of her choice present during all aspects of her maternity care.**
15. Every woman has the right to receive continuous social, emotional and physical support during labor and birth from a caregiver who has been trained in labor support.**
16. Every woman has the right to receive full advance information about risks and benefits of all reasonably available methods for relieving pain during labor and birth, including methods that do not require the use of drugs. She has the right to choose which methods will be used and to change her mind at any time.*
17. Every woman has the right to freedom of movement during labor, unencumbered by tubes, wires or other apparatus. She also has the right to give birth in the position of her choice.*
18. Every woman has the right to virtually uninterrupted contact with her newborn from the moment of birth, as long as she and her baby are healthy and do not need care that requires separation.**
19. Every woman has the right to receive complete information about the benefits of breastfeeding well in advance of labor, to refuse supplemental bottles and other actions that interfere with breastfeeding, and to have access to skilled lactation support for as long as she chooses to breastfeed.**
20. Every woman has the right to decide collaboratively with caregivers when she and her baby will leave the birth site for home, based on their conditions and circumstances.**
© 1999, 2006 Childbirth Connection
Our Sources
The following sources, in their present or earlier editions, helped guide the development of this statement of rights:
American Hospital Association. The Patient Care Partnership: Understanding Expectations, Rights and Responsibilities, 2003.
Annas, G..J. A national bill of patients' rights. New England Journal of Medicine 1998;338(10):695-699.
Annas, G. J. The Rights of Patients: The Authoritative ACLU Guide to the Rights of Patients, third edition. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004.
The Boston Women's Health Book Collective. Sections on "Childbearing" and "Knowledge is Power." In: Our Bodies, Ourselves: A New Edition for a New Era. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005;417-524, 699-758.
Coalition for Improving Maternity Services (CIMS). The Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative, 1996.
Enkin, M., Keirse, M. J. N. C., Neilson J., Crowther, C., Duley, L., Hodnett, E. and Hofmeyr, J. A Guide to Effective Care in Pregnancy and Childbirth, third edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
International Childbirth Education Association, Inc. The Pregnant Patient's Bill of Rights. Minneapolis: ICEA, 1975.
President's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry. Appendix A: Consumer Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. In its Quality First: Better Health Care for All Americans.
United Nations. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.
Thank you to George Annas, professor and chair of Health Law at the Boston University School of Public Health, for clarifying the legal status of the individual rights.
This website created 7/06 by BirthingRight Midwifery - last update 10/31 /09
(This site best viewed in Safari or Firefox and in high resolution.)
All text and photos are the property of BirthingRight Midwifery and the Parents, unless otherwise noted.
