Wichita OB-GYN’s nurse-midwives now delivering babies at local hospital

Expectant parents in the Wichita area have a new birthing option — a midwife-attended delivery at a local hospital.

Mid-Kansas Women’s Center has hired three certified nurse-midwives, Amanda Haworth, Rachel Cheek and Stacey Eason, who are already delivering babies at Wesley Medical Center.

“Wichita is somewhat behind the times in use of midwives. If you go up close to the Kansas City area, there are a significant number of births that are done by midwives,” said Bob Melchor, practice administrator at Mid-Kansas Women’s Center.

“These three ladies were in the area, knew of us, we knew of them, and we were able to put something together that no other OB-GYN group in town offers.”

Wichita has no shortage of certified midwives who can perform home deliveries, but nurse-midwives are uniquely qualified both to deliver babies in hospitals and write prescriptions for patients.

“Patients who don’t want to have a home birth for various health reasons or complications with their pregnancy, and then come to us, or those patients that want to have an epidural or want to have other kinds of pain medications that they can’t necessarily get with the home birth — this is an option for them,” said Haworth, one of the three new hires.

Hospital births in the U.S. are significantly safer than home births, regardless of how qualified the attending midwife may be. According to a 2020 study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, nearly 14 newborns per 10,000 live births died following planned home births. That’s more than four times the mortality rate for babies born in hospitals.

Haworth said she and her colleagues go out of their way to make patients as comfortable and prepared as possible for the labor and birth process.

“Our appointment times tend to be longer because we spend however much time the patient needs us to with them to answer any questions, put any anxieties that they have at ease,” she said.

While Haworth, Cheek and Eason are authorized to deliver babies at Via Christi St. Joseph hospital, so far they’ve done so exclusively at Wesley.

All three certified nurse-midwives are qualified to provide primary care, gynecologic and family planning services, preconception care, care during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period.