Midwifery Care at Kaiser Permanente® Orange County
Kaiser Orange County is the proud home to one of the largest midwifery practices in the state of California with over 20 midwives actively practicing.
Our Scope of Practice
Certified Nurse Midwives (CNMs) provider healthcare to women across the lifespan from adolescence through menopause and beyond. We particularly specialize in pregnancy, childbirth, and gynecologic and reproductive health. We complete annual well woman exams, birth control prescriptions, menopause treatments, treatment for vaginal infections and sexually transmitted diseases, and other female complications. We can also order any laboratory or diagnostic tests (i.e. pelvic ultrasounds, mammograms) that are deemed necessary. One hallmark of our practice is health education, including birth control counseling, healthy pregnancies, menopause counseling, and alternative treatments.
Philosophy of Care
As Certified Nurse Midwives, we honor the normalcy of women's lifecycle events such as pregnancy and menopause. We believe that pregnancy and childbirth are a normal process in a woman’s life and should be treated as such until proven otherwise. We believe in:
- Watchful waiting and non-intervention in normal processes
- Appropriate use of interventions and technology for current or potential health problems
- Consultation, collaboration and referral with other members of the healthcare team as needed to provide optimal health care
We feel that each woman is a partner in the healthcare team and our goal is to help empower her and her family in her healthcare decisions and help make a plan of care that is suitable in each individual situation. We are mothers, sisters, aunts, and grandmothers just like you and have sat where you sit and gone through the joys and sorrows of life just like you. Since we are all nurses at heart, we bring to the bedside a caring and compassion nature that our patients love and appreciate.
– adapted from American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) website
