Welcome Home Midwifery Services, Inc.

$1,936 raised by 18 donors

39% complete

$5,000 Goal

Welcome Home Doula Services, Inc. was founded in 2010 by Madeleine Shernock as a doula business with a special interest in serving low-income families. Our fundamental philosophy is that pregnancy and birth are normal, healthy events in the life of a family. Birth is an opportunity for personal growth and the strengthening of relationships. It is a unique process that belongs to the pregnant client and their family. Over the next several years, Madeleine and a dedicated team of Mentor Doulas helped to build the Apprentice Doula Program, a larger community of doulas available to meet the diverse needs of families in the greater Sacramento area. Since the start of the Apprentice Doula Program in 2011, over 25 doulas have received training and experience through Welcome Home. In 2014, Welcome Home Doula Services, Inc. became recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

Welcome Home Midwifery Services was founded in 2016 as a sister organization to WHDS, facilitating affordable midwifery care and clinical midwifery training to the Sacramento region; making it our responsibility to provide excellence in a childbearing client's care and education, and sensitivity to their concerns and needs. We received our determination letter as a 501(c)(3) at the end of 2017.

Welcome Home Doula Services and Welcome Home Midwifery Services underwent a corporate merger (with Welcome Home Midwifery Services, Inc. as the remaining organization), combining resources and personnel to better serve the childbearing community of Sacramento. While the programs largely are unchanged, this merger better allows our staff and clientele to benefit from streamlined services, more structured case management, and collaboration with other providers and organizations.

In 2018, Welcome Home Midwifery Services opened a Licensed Midwife-Run Freestanding Birth Center in South Sacramento. In 2020, WHMS also opened a Licensed Midwife clinic and training facility beside the birth center.

Mission

Welcome Home Midwifery Services, Inc. provides accessible midwifery care and clinical midwifery training. Through the implementation of clinical training programs for midwives and assistants, affordable midwifery services for families, and accessible perinatal care in the Greater Sacramento Area, our mission is to improve perinatal outcomes for poor and working class families.

Needs

We have had our Community Birth Center up and running for nearly four years. This facility allows us to provide personalized, family-centered care for even more healthy people before, during, and after normal pregnancy, labor, and birth. The yearly cost to utilize the space including rent and utilities is over $57,000.

Freestanding birth centers achieve better outcomes than hospitals on quality measures such as the cesarean rate for low-risk clients, elective delivery prior to 39 weeks, and breastfeeding. Our Community Birth Center saves health dollars and reduces the risk of complications during and following childbirth, particularly for families on Medi-Cal (90% of our clients/patients).

We offer high-touch, low-tech care which inherently lowers our cost for medical supplies. However, we are required to keep certain life-saving equipment stocked such as oxygen, sterilized instruments, medicines for bleeding, antibiotics, local anesthesia, IV fluids, suture kits, and newborn medications. We continue to see a decrease in the availability of basic supplies and personal protective equipment, which has fueled very creative solutions and waste-reduction policies at our birth center. Overall, our organization spent $6,324 on medical supplies in 2021, a decrease of over $10,000 from 2020.

WHMS is run by an all-volunteer Board of Directors and is staffed largely by Student Midwives enrolled in MEAC-accredited midwifery education programs. Students enroll in our clinical training programs because they are passionate about serving our community and increasing the breadth of humane, dignified maternity care options available to our region.

We value the time and effort each Student Midwife contributes to our mission by reimbursing them for their out-of-pocket expenses such as mileage, home-cooked meals for clients, and monthly on-call cellphone usage. We also stipend Student Midwives for each birth they attend as a care provider. The average cost per Student Midwife is $26,000.

Rather than just keeping up with caring for our clients, we finally had time and energy to strengthen our billing capacity this year. In partnership with the California Association of Licensed Midwives Medi-Cal Task Force, Welcome Home has successfully executed contracts with eight of the major Managed Care Medi-Cal plans (a first for Licensed Midwives in our region), including two new plans in 2021. We continue to attempt to negotiate contracts with health plans in Sacramento, Yolo, Placer, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Yuba, Sutter, and Nevada Counties. Our malpractice insurance premiums, required in order for our practice to bill Medi-Cal, totaled about $10,000 this year.

Equity Statement

Welcome Home Midwifery Services (WHMS) strives to improve upon and diversify the midwifery community and provide options, quality, and sensitivity in the promotion of perinatal health for families in Central California.

Our fundamental philosophy is that pregnancy and birth are normal, healthy events in the life of a family. Birth is an opportunity for personal growth and the strengthening of relationships. It is a unique process that belongs to the pregnant client and their family.

We offer options to families for their place of birth, care provider, the appropriate level of expertise given their clinical history, and the evidence-based use of technology. Licensed Midwives, who are experts in the care of normal and healthy childbearing families, work independently and in collaboration with other healthcare providers. Together with families, WHMS staff are dedicated to taking the time to educate, advise and support the childbearing family while facilitating a safe, healthy pregnancy and birth.

​We are guided by the principles of prevention, sensitivity, safety, appropriate medical intervention, and cost effectiveness.

It is our responsibility to provide excellence in a childbearing client’s care and education, and sensitivity to their concerns and needs. The client’s health is also their own responsibility; we expect and encourage them to communicate with us and be leaders in decision-making. We acknowledge the value of both traditional and alternative forms of health promotion and treatment. We will listen to our clients, and treat them and their families with respect, dignity and assurance of confidentiality.

Organization Data

Summary

Organization name

Welcome Home Midwifery Services, Inc.

other names

WHMS

Tax id (EIN)

81-4893156

Mission Category

Education

Operating Budget

$50,001 - $100,000

Organization Need

Space: Office or Other, Funding: Other, Furniture, Other, Funding: Unrestricted

Demographics Served

Low-income individuals/families, LGBTQIA+, Women/Female-identifying

Local Counties Served

El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Yolo

Equity Statement

Equity Statement

Address

4500 47th Ave. Suite 5
Sacramento, CA 95824

Service areas

Sacramento County, CA, US

Yolo County, CA, US

Stanislaus County, CA, US

Placer County, CA, US

San Joaquin County, CA, US

Phone

916-668-9467

fax

209-336-6814