http://www.fullwellmidwifery.com/

Full Well Midwifery, 4370 Starkey Road, suite 4E, Roanoke, VA (2026)

09/04/2026

I'll be honest with you. I used to think homebirth was for a certain kind of person.

Hippies. Vegans. People who don't wear shoes. 😅

Maybe you've had the same thought. Or maybe you've heard the other versions of it.

"Homebirth is only for rich people."
"Homebirth is a privilege."
"Homebirth is what poor people did years ago because they had no other choice."
"Homebirth is for people who aren't educated."

Let me tell you what I've actually learned, catching babies in real homes with real families.

All kinds of people have homebirths.

The family having their seventh baby, who home church, homeschool, and homestead. And the couple who both work at the hospital, one with a PhD, who cannot imagine giving birth anywhere but their own bedroom. (Yes, really. Healthcare workers make up the bulk of my clients, right alongside stay-at-home mamas.)

People who live in mansions. People who live in income-based apartments. I have caught babies in studio apartments and in eight-bedroom houses. First-time mamas and seasoned mamas. Every background you can imagine.

Because homebirth was never about a certain type of person.

It's about wanting to birth your baby your way. Uninterrupted. Safe. Supported. In the comfort of your own space, and then snuggling up in your own bed with your baby when it's all said and done.

That desire doesn't belong to one income bracket, one education level, or one lifestyle. It belongs to anyone who wants it.

And at Full Well Midwifery, we work hard to make it possible for as many families as we can.

We keep costs as low as we can for our self-pay clients. We offer payment plans, financing options, and yes, even bartering. And we accept Medicaid. Any kind of Medicaid.

We serve Franklin County, Henry County, Roanoke, and the surrounding areas, generally anywhere within about an hour of Roanoke.

So whoever you are, whatever your reasons, whatever your home looks like, we would love to help you birth your baby at home.

Homebirth is for everyone. Shoes optional. ❤️

09/03/2026

The moment I knew this was exactly what I was called to do.

I still remember my first real experience as a student midwife.

I went with another member of the birth team to visit a family just a few hours postpartum, a simple visit to see how things were going after a first baby. Up to that point, the only birth I'd ever known was my own hospital births. I walked in not knowing what to expect.

And what I found took my breath away.

The mama was in her bed in just a diaper, sweaty, crying, working to latch her equally red-faced, crying, brand new little human, also in nothing but a diaper. Her hair was still curly and plastered to her forehead from the work of birth. Her belly still soft and swollen from carrying new life. An ice pack tucked between her legs.

And next to the bed stood her husband. A brand new father, desperate to be helpful, looking at his wife like she was the single most beautiful, awe-inspiring thing he had ever seen.

She had brought their first baby earthside in the very same bed they'd made him in. Her body had been his home. And then she birthed him. Roared him into this world, right into his father's waiting hands.

I looked at that new dad, his eyes glistening with tears I could tell were love in its rawest, purest form, and I felt it. Something sacred, holy, divine. There is no other way to explain it.

Because birth, and the tender days that follow, are so deeply spiritual.

God is felt so keenly in those moments. His presence overflowing, filling the room. It remains one of the most powerful things I have ever witnessed. And standing there, I knew, with my whole heart, that this was exactly what I was made to do.

And then we got to work.

We dabbed her brow with a cool cloth. Fed her little bits of cheese and crackers. Held the cup while she sipped her water. Prepared herbs for her peri bottle. Helped her latch her baby.

And by the time we left, she was relaxed back into her pillows, her baby cradled and satisfied in her arms, a look of pure bliss on her face.

That is why I do this.

Not just to catch babies. But to protect and preserve these sacred, fleeting, holy moments. To care for a mother so tenderly in the hours after she's done the hardest, most beautiful work of her life. To hold space for the magic and let a new family simply fall in love.

I would be so honored to care for you and your baby this way. To walk with you through your birth and to preserve this tender time for your family, exactly as it was meant to be.

This is the work of my heart. And it would be my privilege to do it for you.

09/01/2026

Should you swaddle your newborn? Here's what the evidence actually says.

As a midwife, I'm often asked about swaddling and whether it's beneficial for newborns. It's a popular practice that many families consider, but based on current research, I generally advise against relying on it regularly. Here's the evidence behind that.

First, arousability.

One of my main concerns is how swaddling affects a baby's arousability, meaning how easily they can wake when they need to. A 2022 systematic review found that swaddled infants showed higher arousal thresholds and less spontaneous arousability during sleep. Both are considered risk factors for SIDS.

That same review noted that "implementing conditions unfavorable to arousability may increase SUDI risk among infants who have not previously been swaddled." In other words, while swaddling creates deeper sleep, that deeper sleep can interfere with a baby's natural protective ability to wake when they encounter a breathing difficulty. Interestingly, this effect is most pronounced in babies who are new to being swaddled.

Second, and most importantly to me, breastfeeding.

Babies actively use their hands throughout feeding. To locate the ni**le, to self-soothe before latching, and to provide massage-like movements that actually help stimulate milk production.

A swaddled baby can't do any of that. They can't show crucial hunger cues like hand-to-mouth movements, which leads to missed feeding opportunities and less frequent feeding. Research shows babies swaddled immediately after birth have delays in breastfeeding initiation, less effective suckling, and greater weight loss.

I see this often. Families struggling to establish breastfeeding when baby is regularly swaddled, because the swaddle masks both hunger and fullness cues, interferes with positioning, and reduces the skin-to-skin contact that supports milk supply.

So instead of routine swaddling, I encourage families to:

Prioritize skin-to-skin contact for comfort and temperature regulation, while keeping baby's ability to communicate intact.

Practice responsive feeding by keeping baby's hands free, so you can catch those early hunger cues like bringing hands to the mouth or sucking on hands.

Trust baby's natural sleep patterns rather than artificially deepening their sleep.

Here's my honest bottom line.

Swaddling isn't dangerous when done safely, and on occasion, when a baby is extra fussy and just won't settle, it can be a helpful tool. I'm not here to say never.

But the combination of reduced arousability and the impact on breastfeeding is enough that I don't recommend it as a regular, default practice for the families I serve.

Every baby is unique, and I work with each family to find what works for them. But supporting a baby's natural ability to communicate through free movement lines up with what the current evidence tells us about healthy newborns. 💚

09/01/2026

Birth Myths, Busted: Volume One

The Myth: "Castor oil causes your baby to pass meconium."

A well-known influencer recently posted about using castor oil to help start labor, and the comments absolutely erupted. "You're going to make your baby aspirate meconium!" "That's so dangerous!"

So let's talk about it. Because I DO sometimes recommend castor oil to clients in specific situations, under supervision, and the meconium fear is largely a myth.

Here's what the research actually shows.

A 2018 systematic review and meta-analysis combined eight studies on castor oil for labor induction. It found that castor oil made mamas more than three times as likely to go into labor within 24 hours. And it found NO increase in meconium-stained fluid. No increase in cesareans, hemorrhage, NICU admissions, uterine rupture, or stillbirth either.

One 2018 study of 323 women who took castor oil found a meconium-stained fluid rate of just 1.5%. That's low.

So where did the myth come from?

Timing. Confounding. Here's the key: castor oil is most often used AFTER the due date. And post-date babies are already more likely to pass meconium simply because of gestational age, not because of anything mom did.

Older studies that linked castor oil to meconium often failed to account for this. They saw meconium, they saw castor oil, and they connected two dots that gestational age had already drawn. Correlation, not causation.

But hear me clearly, because this part matters:

Castor oil is NOT a DIY, try-it-off-a-TikTok situation. It can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and dehydration. It is a real intervention with real effects.

Castor oil should ONLY ever be used when your provider recommends it, at the right time, in the right dose, after a real conversation about the risks and benefits and whether it's appropriate for YOUR body and YOUR pregnancy. Shared decision making. Informed consent. Every time.

The myth isn't that castor oil is always safe. The myth is that it causes meconium. The evidence doesn't support that.

What it supports is this: like everything else in birth, it's a tool. And tools belong in trained hands, used with good information.

Got a birth myth you want busted? Drop it in the comments. This is Volume One, and there are plenty more where this came from. 💚

08/29/2026

I'm your midwife for everything. Except family planning. Because I want you to have ALL the babies.

Nutrition? I got you. Aches and pains? Let's talk. Breastfeeding struggles, postpartum recovery, hormones, the weird questions, the awkward questions? Bring them all. I am your girl for every single bit of it.

But if you come to me wondering whether you might be done having babies?

Ma'am. You have come to the wrong midwife.

I am, without question, the most biased person you will ever consult on this topic. Because I love your babies. I love watching your family grow. And I will always, ALWAYS be quietly (loudly) rooting for just one more.

When a client tells me they think they're done, something in me shatters a little.

A tiny pang. A single tear. The distant sound of a birth pool I'll never get to inflate again.

Because I've caught your babies. I've sat on your bedroom floor at 3am. I've watched you become a mother over and over, and it is genuinely my favorite thing in the entire world. The thought of not doing it with you one more time? Devastating. Simply devastating. (I'm being so normal about this.)

So consider me your midwife for everything except talking you into being finished.

For that one? You're on your own, because I cannot be trusted.
..But okay, fine. Of course I'll actually support you with family planning too. I'll give you real information and real options and help you make the choice that's right for YOUR family, like the professional I am.

I'll just be doing it while sustaining significant emotional damage. 💚

📷 with one of my amazing clients, friends and 3 of her babies that I’ve gotten the privilege of catching ❤️

08/27/2026

We spend the last weeks of pregnancy trying to rush past them. What if we didn't?

I see it all the time. Bouncing on the ball, walking the curbs, eating the dates, drinking the tea, trying every trick in the book to coax that baby out a few days sooner.

And I understand it, I truly do. You have grown this baby for nine months. You are uncomfortable and exhausted and desperate to finally meet the little person you already love so much. That longing is real and it is beautiful.

But so much of that urgency is just our rushed society creeping into one of the most sacred seasons of your life. Hurry up. Speed it along. Get to the next thing.

What if, instead, you slowed down?

What if these last weeks weren't something to survive or wish away, but something to soak up?

Here's what I encourage my mamas to do with this time.

Move your body with intention. Stretch. Take evening walks with your family as the day cools down. Be intimate with your husband. Have dance parties in the kitchen with your kids. Let your body do this work gently and joyfully instead of frantically.

Be intentional about preparing your heart and mind for birth. Read positive birth stories. Listen to informative podcasts. Fill your mind with confidence instead of fear.

Spend a day making freezer meals for those tender early postpartum weeks. Spend a Saturday painting birth affirmations for your birth space. Nest with purpose.

And pray. Pray over your birth. Pray over your baby. Pray over your midwives, your doctors, your nurses, every hand that will help bring your baby into the world. Pray over the next season of life that's coming. Cover all of it. Pray, pray, pray.

And if this is your first baby, hear me on this one.

These are the very last weeks it will ever be just you and your husband. Ever.

Go on the dates. Sleep in. Linger over coffee. Watch the movies. Do your favorite things together and be present for them, because your family is about to grow in the most beautiful way, and this particular season will never come again.

Your baby is not late. Your body is not failing. Nothing is wrong.

Trust your body. Trust your baby. Trust God's timing. Your baby knows exactly when to come, and these last weeks of waiting are not wasted time. They are a gift.

Don't rush past them. Soak them up.

This is a beautiful time.

08/27/2026

“I was told I had to. They didn't give me any choices, or any information. They just told me what was going to happen."

I hear this from women all the time. And it breaks my heart every single time, because it is the exact opposite of how birth should feel. And this can happen with any type of provider, in any birth place.

Informed consent is the cornerstone of Full Well Midwifery.

It sits right alongside relationship-based care, and honestly, the two cannot be separated.

Here's what informed consent actually looks like with me.

I give you the information. All of it. The risks. The benefits. The alternatives. What the evidence actually says. And yes, sometimes I will make a recommendation based on my training and experience.

But at the end of the day, it is your body. Your baby. Your birth. And you are the one who gets to make the decisions, with a full and clear understanding of your choices.

Not "you have to." Not "we don't allow that." Not decisions made for you while you lie there, uninformed and unheard.

Because I believe mothers know what is best for their own bodies. I trust you to make choices for yourself and your baby. That trust isn't a nice sentiment I tack on. It's the foundation of everything I do.

And here's where the relationship piece matters so much.

When we have spent months building a relationship rooted in trust, something beautiful happens. You know that when I offer information, it's honest. You know that when I make a recommendation, it's genuinely based on evidence, not policy, not convenience, not a clock on the wall. And you know, without a doubt, that I care deeply for you and your baby.

That trust changes everything. It means that in the rare moment something needs real attention, we can make decisions together, quickly and calmly, because the foundation was laid long before.

You deserve to be informed. You deserve to be heard. You deserve to be the one making decisions about your own body and your own baby.

That is not too much to ask. It is the bare minimum. And it is exactly what you will find here.

If you're pregnant, or hoping to be, and you want care that treats you as the capable, intelligent decision-maker you are, let's talk.

Full Well Midwifery is now booking spring 2027 consultations. Reach out. I would love to hear your story and walk this road with you. 💚

📧 [email protected]
📱 (540) 354-9368

08/25/2026

I'm a Homebirth midwife, and I don't encourage ingesting your placenta.

I know. Not what you'd expect to hear from a crunchy, holistic, physiologic-birth-loving home birth midwife. But hear me out, because this is rooted in how your body actually works.

Here's the mechanism most people are never told.

Throughout pregnancy, your placenta produces high levels of progesterone. That progesterone is what keeps your mature milk from coming in early. It's a brake pedal.

When your baby is born and your placenta is delivered, that progesterone drops sharply. THAT drop is the signal. It's the green light that tells your body: the baby is here, the placenta is gone, it's time to make milk. That hormonal shift is what brings your milk in around day two or three.

So what happens when you take that placenta, encapsulate it, and put it back into your body?

You may be reintroducing the very hormones your body just worked to clear. The same progesterone that was signaling your breasts to hold off. And for some women, that can cause confusion, a delay in milk coming in, or a drop in supply.

This isn't fear-mongering. It's the same reason retained placental fragments are a known cause of delayed or suppressed milk. Progesterone lingering in the body tells your breasts to wait. Lactation consultants are increasingly reporting supply issues in mothers who encapsulate.

Now, here's where I hold this with an open hand.

Many women swear by placenta encapsulation for postpartum mood and energy. Many of my own clients still choose to encapsulate, and I support them fully. This is not me telling you what to do with your body or your placenta. It is your placenta. Your choice.

But my job is to make sure you have the full picture before you decide.

So here is what I encourage: if the benefits feel worth it to you, consider waiting until your milk supply is well established, typically a few weeks in, before you begin. That way you get the benefits you're hoping for without risking the delicate early days when your supply is still finding its rhythm.

Everything I do comes back to this: real information, and your right to make an informed decision with it.

Your body. Your placenta. Your choice. I just want it to be an informed one. 💚

08/19/2026

There is a special feeling in the room right after a baby is born that I will never be able to fully put into words.

The awe in a father's eyes as he looks at what his wife just did. The love radiating off a mother as she pulls her baby to her chest for the very first time. The raw, holy, overwhelming emotion that fills a room when new life arrives.

It's sacred. And it is so easily disrupted.

Part of my job, one of the most important parts, is knowing how to protect those moments.

A skilled birth team knows how to do two things at once. We are quietly monitoring mom and baby, watching, assessing, making sure everyone is safe and well. And at the very same time, we are holding space. Keeping our voices low. Staying out of the way. Letting a family fall in love without an audience narrating over them.

We don't flip on bright lights. We don't rush in to weigh the baby. We don't hurry the placenta. We don't fill the silence with chatter or checklists.

Because there is no rush.

The baby will be weighed. The placenta will be born. All of it happens in time. But those first raw minutes, when a family meets each other for the very first time, come only once. And when it's safe to do so, we often step back, step out, and simply give them room to bond, to cry, to laugh, to just be.

That's not neglect. That's reverence. It's knowing that some moments are too sacred to interrupt.

This is the heart of how we care for families at Full Well Midwifery. Skilled hands ready when needed, and the wisdom to know when the most important thing we can do is quietly protect the space and let love take the room.

We are now accepting clients for Spring 2027.

If you're dreaming of a birth like this, unhurried, sacred, protected, and cared for by people who truly know you, we would be honored to walk with you.

Reach out. Let's talk. Those first moments with your baby deserve to be held with this kind of care.

08/17/2026

Someday I won't remember every number on your chart.

I won't remember exactly what your blood pressure was at 36 weeks, or how many centimeters you were when I walked through your front door.

But I will remember you.

I'll remember you telling me about the birth you were afraid to have again. The appointment where you finally exhaled because someone actually listened. Your husband quietly asking how to take care of you well. Your older babies climbing into your lap while I measured your belly.

I'll remember sitting on your bedroom floor in the middle of the night, listening to your baby's heartbeat while you labored right where you felt safest.

The moment you reached down and touched your baby's head for the first time. The look on your face when you realized: I'm doing it.

And I'll remember the quiet afterward. Your baby on your chest. Your husband beside you. A meal being made somewhere in the house. Tiny newborn sounds filling the same room where, hours before, you were still waiting to meet them.

This is what I wish more people understood about midwifery care.

You are not an appointment on my schedule. You're not "the 39-weeker in room four."

I know your baby's name. I know what you're afraid of and what you're hoping for. I know the birth story that came before this one. I know when you need information, when you need reassurance, and when you just need someone to sit beside you and remind you that you can do hard things.

When the day finally comes, I'm not meeting you for the first time while you're in labor. I'm walking into the home of someone I've spent months getting to know.

There is something sacred about being invited into this chapter of a family's story. I don't take it lightly.

Because long after the birth pool is drained and my bag is packed back into my car, you will remember how you were cared for. Whether you felt heard. Whether decisions felt like they belonged to you. Whether the people in the room believed in you.

And someday, when you tell your child the story of the day they were born, I hope you can say: "I was surrounded by people who knew me, trusted me, and cared for us well."

That's the care I want every Full Well mother to have.

Not just a beautiful birth. To be known. To be heard. To be cared for well. ❤️

Full Well Midwifery

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