Trusting the Creator’s design

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, July 23rd. Good morning and thanks for listening. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Giving birth at home.

It’s becoming more popular. A team of Christian midwives in South Carolina is taking on the opportunities and challenges that come with growing demand.

Here’s World Journalism Institute graduate Abigail Hofland.

ABIGAIL HOFLAND: Amy Redman loves telling the story of the first home birth she attended:

REDMAN: …because it was a couple who did not know the Lord. They were in a biker gang actually, and the midwife I was training with at the time was a believer.

Redman was open about her faith and developed a friendship with the parents. Six months after their baby was born, she stopped in for a visit.

REDMAN: And they were completely different people. What the dad said to me was, ‘When it was just the two of us, we were willing to take a chance on heaven and hell and eternity, but when the Lord gave us a baby – another soul that we were entrusted with – we wanted to know if God was real and if heaven and hell were real because we were now responsible for a child. And they came to know the Lord.

It’s an experience that has stuck with her over the years.

REDMAN: Starting a family and bringing a child into the world, is a time when people are going to sit back and start thinking.

From the start of her career, Redman enjoyed walking with families through that time. But after about 25 years working solo, she found the on-call lifestyle to be draining and unsustainable.

REDMAN: So the burnout rate among midwives is huge, the divorce rate among midwives is high—even among believing midwives, and so we wanted something different.

In 2022, she and some fellow midwives started a team practice called Beloved Birth Midwifery. One of those midwives is Elizabeth Randolph.

RANDOLPH: You know, I had taken a long hiatus from midwifery because of the burnout and because of needing to focus on my family and really being able to be part of this practice, was a very necessary thing for me to even be able to consider coming back to midwifery.

Randolph now delivers babies when she’s not homeschooling her 6 kids. She says this is possible because of how the team structures commitments. Redman says working in shifts is pivotal:

REDMAN: We were looking specifically to create a model that allows us to keep our priorities in the order of followers of Jesus first and foremost, wives and mamas, second, and midwives third, but that gave our clients good, loving, consistent care.

Home births in America make up just 1 percent of all deliveries. But that number is growing. In South Carolina, home deliveries recently climbed 25% in just two years. The clientele has changed too. Midwife Karla Costner says home birth families used to be on the fringe.

COSTNER: And now it's, you know, we have a lot of nurses and PAs and we have a lot of medical people coming to the home birth scenario.

People choose home birth for different reasons. Some have seen or experienced birth trauma. Others want a little more autonomy than hospitals provide. Redman says all are drawn to the midwifery model of low intervention and personalized care. For her, the approach is a no brainer:

COSTNER: We can really come around the moms that were fearful of being a mom or weren’t necessarily prepared to have another baby and we can say look how beautiful this gift is, you’re doing a good job, keep up the great work, and really encourage them in that.

The midwives at Beloved Birth say faith comes through their fingertips. And clients can feel it.

MILLIGAN: And to know that it’s my sister in Christ whose attending my birth. And she cares about this child as a soul and about me as a soul, not just as a client.

Shannon Milligan is a Christian mom who delivered a baby with Beloved Birth before coming onboard as an office assistant.

MILLIGAN: Their expertise was absolutely vital, but it went further to have that kinship, you know, a sisterhood.

Supporting clients through labor and delivery is always the midwives’ top priority, but they say the postpartum period is where the bulk of ministry happens. Midwife Karla Costner says it’s a space these midwives fill well.

REDMAN: The midwifery model is trusting in the design of the Creator and recognizing that the more we as humans intervene and the more we mess with a process and change it, the more we increase risks.

The midwives at Beloved Birth are unashamedly pro-life. This comes out in their website and conversation, and they say it tends to attract like-minded families.

REDMAN: But we are working right now with somebody who walking into a crisis pregnancy center and seeing the ultrasound and seeing that heartbeat and that baby is what made her go, oh yes, this is a baby, and this is my baby, and I'll do whatever it takes, and we are able to minister to this mom. And it's been beautiful.

Redman says prayer is a big part of every labor and delivery, but it’s important during the pregnancy, too. She often asks moms how the team of midwives can be praying for them.

REDMAN: And the range of answers, you know, sometimes they're like, well, that's it, and other times, it will bring up things that they're struggling with, or insecurities or fears or anxieties, but sometimes It brings up things that we can fix on a clinical midwifery level that would not come up in normal conversation.

Midwives say their work is a mix of traditional wisdom and modern technique. But it’s not practical skills that make the biggest difference.

REDMAN: I feel like I’m a better midwife today, not because of 29 years of experience, but I’m a better midwife today because when you keep your priorities straight, and keep God first and family second, you serve from a rested, peaceful place.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Abigail Hofland.

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