About Guardian Midwifery Services:
Guardian Midwifery Services is run by Pam Rhodes, an experienced midwife operating out of Fond du Lac, WI. Read more about her values, experience, and how she can support you during your birth.
Values
I believe women are created to conceive, carry, labor, deliver, and nurture their children. It is innate for us to do this; with proper guidance, reassurance, and support we can – mostly without intervention. Women deserve honest caregivers who respectfully offer comprehensive care and in some cases, a bit of education. They deserve caregivers who allow women and their families to make decisions that are right for them without using fear to influence those decisions.
I trust birth, and I trust women to birth instinctually with the right support. Each women, each pregnancy, and each birth is unique and special. I feel privileged to attend women and their families during this very initimate time in their lives.
Experience
As a teenager I wanted to be involved in birth work although my idea of birth work and my level of involvement has changed a lot in 25 years. I began to study birth, the birth process, women, and the way birth was happening in the 1980′s. I attended hospital births as an advocate of natural childbirth and was a post partum doula. I was so uncomfortable with what was happening to birthing women and very quickly realized it was not where I wanted to experience birth, nor did I think it was good for all women.
I read more and studied everything I could find about women and birth. About 18 months after my second home birth, I was asked by my own midwife to assist her at a home birth. I was in awe of the birth I witnessed that early winter morning. I knew this was where I could be used. That happened in 1989. Since then I have attended births as an observer, an assistant, a doula, a student of midwifery, an apprentice to a midwife, and a primary midwife.
I received my CPM credential in March of 2008 and my Wisconsin license in April of 2008. I maintain certification in Adult CPR and complete the NRP (Neonatal Resusitation Program) every two years. I have attended a variety of workshops on suturing skills, proper IV placement, estimating blood loss, record keeping, breastfeeding, Midwifery Law and Ethics, and a 2 day ALSO course (Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics). My education is ongoing.
Support
I want every woman I serve to feel like she and her baby are the most important things to me while I care for them – because they are. I would love to have a large practice with lots of clients, but I don’t want to lose the small practice feel and the dedicated time I share with my clients.
History shows there was little if any benefit from turning our childbirthing choices over to a group of people that do not have the same vested interest in the outcome of the birth or for our children. We can’t really fault our foremothers for this; not one of them thought it through to the end, which is the broken system in place today. But we who have come to realize the longterm mental and physical effects of birth on ourselves and our unborn can make a better choice now. That choice is to educate ourselves, to take better care of ourselves, and not just trust in a policy or a doctor. The answer is not ‘out of hospital’ births for all women; no, ‘out of hospital’ births are for a small but growing number of women who want something different.