One of the biggest surprises to many first-time home birth families, especially if they have had a prior hospital birth, is the incredible postpartum support that they receive from Embrace Midwifery. Postpartum home birth care may be the best kept secret of having a home birth! Our comprehensive, concierge care is available to all Massachusetts home birth families that birth with Embrace Midwifery.

For approximately four to six hours after your baby is born at home, your midwifery team will be there to attend to you, your baby and your family’s physical and emotional needs. We carefully monitor the birth giver’s vital signs, bleeding, and recovery and can provide vaginal suturing when (rarely) needed. Similarly, we carefully monitor the baby’s vital signs, breathing efforts, temperature, and color to assess the baby’s transition to breathing on their own for the very first time.

Unlike many hospital births, these assessments are completed with the baby skin to skin with you and with your permission. We are experienced in watching and waiting for signs of breast/chest-feeding readiness and we are present to facilitate that first latch and feeding experience. While you eat and snuggle, bond, and breastfeed with your baby, your midwives will be cleaning your birth space, laundering any dirty towels and sheets and charting in your medical record. When the baby has finished their first feeding we will perform their head-to-toe assessment, weight, measurements and administer any newborn medications that you request.

Once you and your baby are stable and well fed, your birth space is clean, and we have helped you to the bathroom and back to bed to rest, we will bid you farewell until our visit the next day. Many families remark how calm and relaxed the post-birth environment is when they birth at home. If you have any questions or concerns after we leave, you will have the ability to contact us directly for advice anytime, day or night.

The day after your home birth, your primary midwife will visit you and your baby again at your home. We will take your vital signs, massage your uterus, and check on your bleeding. We will talk about how you are feeling emotionally. If you desire, we can process and celebrate your birth story. This is something that many desire, but they often do not get an opportunity to do so during a hospital birth as it is rare for a birth giver to see the doctor, midwife, or nurse that was at their birth.

We will be happy to observe your baby breast/chest-feeding to help with latch and proper positioning. If necessary, we can help you connect with a vetted, internationally board-certified lactation consultant (IBCLC) for any breast/chest-feeding concerns that are out of our area of expertise. We will assess your baby head-to-toe, including skin color to assess for jaundice, and we will obtain another weight. We will also perform a congenital heart defect (CHD) screening by taking the baby’s pulse oximetry reading on their hand and their foot. We will be there to answer your questions and to teach you about caring for your newborn.

On the third day after your birth, our nurse will visit you and your baby, again at your home! She will perform all the same assessments of you and your baby that happened on Day 1 (except for the CHD screening). She will offer to obtain and send the newborn metabolic screening test which helps prevent treatable disorders through early detection. And again, she will be there to help answer your questions about your baby, your body, your recovery, and feeding.

You will receive two additional postpartum home visits from our team. A midwife will visit you on Day 7 and our nurse will visit you again at the 2 to 3-week mark. During these visits we are assessing both you and your baby, performing a perinatal mood disorder screening, and connecting you to resources in your community as needed for any issue that may arise.

Because of this comprehensive parent-child care, you will not need to bring your baby to the pediatrician for their first visit until they are approximately 4 weeks old, unless they develop a complication that requires more specialized care. In that rare event, we will fax all appropriate medical records for your baby’s birth and newborn care to your pediatric or family practice of choice.

Your final postpartum visit with us will be at 6 weeks postpartum. For most hospital birth families, this visit is the only contact they will have from their obstetric provider. For this appointment, we ask that you come to one of our offices in either Worcester or Dudley. We will assess your physical and emotional health and perform a perinatal mood disorder screening. With your permission, we can also perform a pelvic exam to make sure your uterus, cervix, and vaginal/perineal area have healed well post-birth. We can perform any necessary blood work (eg. screening for anemia, diabetes, or thyroid issues). We will also discuss family planning and provide you with a prescription or appointment for the contraception of your choice, should you desire it. Best of all, we will fawn over your baby and celebrate how much you both have grown together!