A program born in the Chippewa Valley 20 years ago has today grown into an increasingly popular option for women giving birth - Marshfield Clinic’s Certified Nurse Midwife Program.

October 8 – 13 is National Certified Nurse Midwife Week and Marshfield Clinic’s nurse midwives are celebrating their involvement in more than 4,000 births over the years. And those babies’ mothers all over the region wouldn’t have had it any other way.

The first baby delivered into the hands of a Marshfield Clinic certified nurse midwife was born June 18, 1987, and is now a 20-year-old University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee student.

“We’re proud of the legacy we created in the Chippewa Valley and excited about the next 20 years,” said Eve Fischer, a Marshfield Clinic administrator who oversees the program. “Our mission today is the same as the day we started back in 1987 – to give expecting mothers a personal, family-centered touch and a highly-trained advocate who stays involved in the mother’s health long after the child is born.”

Marshfield Clinic has eight certified nurse midwives on staff, including six at Marshfield Clinic Eau Claire Center, one at Marshfield Clinic Marshfield Center and one at Marshfield Clinic Weston Center. Midwives at the Eau Claire Center deliver babies at Sacred Heart Hospital.

Certified nurse midwives have been practicing in the United States since the 1920s. Nurse midwives now are registered nurses with master’s degrees in nurse midwifery. They offer prenatal care and education, delivery, postpartum care, lactation consultation, annual exams and family planning. The midwives offer many birthing alternatives including water birth, aromatherapy, natural birth, family-centered care, massage and visualization, as well as more traditional means of pain relief such as pain medication or epidurals.

Their philosophy about birth is that women’s bodies were uniquely created to give birth and, in the majority of cases, need no intervention to achieve that. Interventions such as IV fluids, bed rest, fetal monitoring, episiotomy and Cesarean birth are used only when indicated rather than as a matter of routine. Midwives at Marshfield Clinic Eau Claire Center work collaboratively with seven obstetricians when complications arise.

For more information about the Marshfield Clinic’s Certified Nurse Midwife Program in Eau Claire, call 715-858-4646.

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