Spotlight Series

Guest Name: Adrienne Brown

Credentials:  Founder and Lead Midwife, Wasatch Midwifery and Wellness

Adrienne Brown: Good.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Awesome. Okay. Adrienne Brown is a certified professional midwife and licensed direct entry midwife with a passion of transforming maternity care into a more natural informed and personal experience. Raised on a farm in rural New York New York, Adrienne grew up immersed in the rhythms of natural living which shaped her approach to birth and wellness. After a deeply medicalized experience seeking a midwife for her first home birth in 1995, Adrienne become a birth advocate, founding grassroots organizations and champion informed choices for families with studies in women’s studies, sustainable leadership, and midwifery. Adrienne has attended hundreds of births across the US, serving families in both rural and urban communities. Her approach blends modern evidence-based practices with the intuition and compassion that make birth a transformative experience. Excuse me. As founder of Wasatch Midwifery, Adrienne is committed to creating a space where families feel empowered, supported, and seen through every stage of their journey. Spot on with that for sure. Yeah. So, welcome, welcome, welcome. Okay. Um, let’s dive in right off the bat. What made you decide to be a midwife? Tell us your story.

Adrienne Brown: So, I did come into midwifery care as a consumer. Yeah. Uh, in 1995. So um I I guess the part about highly medicalized experience um I I sort of was already on this uh route of natural living stuff even even back then uh and I was young and and I first was living in Albuquerque, New Mexico where I looked literally in the in the phone book and younger people won’t know this what the experience of looking in the yellow pages. Yes. And I looked under, you know, midwife. Boom. And and found and I called this woman and um I was sort of like studying ceramics and living in the desert and all this kind of hippie stuff. And I called her and she literally pulls up in a VW bus to my home where I had like roommates who were getting their master’s degree at the UNM and you know, things like this. and they’re like, “Oh, so you’re going to have the baby here?” Um, and I had this midwife. And ultimately, I moved back to New York State where I’m from before I had the baby. And then that’s when I realized midwifery, the legality of this type of midwifery was very different. And I had to uh go in a health food store and look on the wall to little business cards. And even then, it was sort of this clandestine. you had to know somebody and talk to somebody because um midwifery in the out of hospital sense, you know, midwives who who were attending home birth, it was illegal. Not just illegal like, oh, you can’t get a license or something. It was being uh prosecuted as a crime. Uh midwives were getting arrested at this time and sort of rounded up in in a modern-day witch hunt kind of a thing. So, um I did have the home birth uh on my little modest apartment floor um on a winter day in 19 in the in December after Christmas in 1995. And then I had to get involved very politically. I didn’t think, oh, I’m going to be a midwife. Uh like I read Spiritual Midwifery, you know, the classic book, and I thought, wow, that’s pretty cool. Um yeah, prior to this, I lived a brief stint on a hippie commune. myself. So, I was like all into that. Um, and it was through my political action work and the grassroots organizations and establishing some of these consumerbased advocacy groups for midwifery uh early on with, you know, people from all over. Um, and to understand now to to own a birthing center and a midwifery practice and and like take insurance and have all these things is is like such a long way, such a 180 from being this like whispers in the back room of a health food store. Yeah. You know, find midwife. Um, so it’s interesting. I mean, I’ve really seen some of this history of this kind, you know, nowadays people take this kind of thing for granted, but it’s sort of like, well, you don’t even know. We were just happy to find anybody and hope we didn’t get arrested. Yeah. Back then, and that still exists in some states in this country if you want to have out of hospital birth. Um, so anyway, that’s how I got involved. And then I um you know obviously studied different things in college like Buddhism and the creative process and I went to a very hippie school in Vermont where you could like it was fascinating to do whatever you wanted to do which was fun. Um and then I years after that went to midwifery school.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Gotcha. So cool. Very cool. Okay. Um what do you feel like makes you different in your approach and how you do things? Obviously you have a lot of experience and life um experience through all of that that’s shaped you um what piece of that makes you different and how you’re how you’re caring for your your clients or patients?

Adrienne Brown: Yeah, I mean I think the breadth of experience that we have that we’ve created within this practice and my colleagues who who help me and my team, but also it’s been um you know a conglomerate of everything I’ve been thinking about for 20 more than 25 years. Um it’s now it’s like yay I’ve arrived at this place. I have a very different practice now than I used to have years ago when I would go around to people’s living rooms and have tea with them and it was very intimate. Um, I’d like to think that we still have that model in the back of our mind, but it’s not scalable to what we’re doing now. And that’s certainly we have some midwives in our community who that’s their style of practice. Um, when I think back to what I used to do as a midwife, it was sort of like, oh, well, if your baby’s jaundice or if you’re having breastfeeding str, it’s like, whoa, I don’t do that. I I’m just there like catching the baby. Um, so now we have a much more integrative approach. We have many years of using sort of a functional way of health and promotion. And there’s still so many things that I want to do. Sometimes we get caught up in our bread and butter, which is delivering babies. But now, you know, with more staffing and things like that, that I can have the time to create content online that people can refer to when it’s 2:00 in the morning and they’re having problems breastfeeding. Um, we can do some more of that to offer more of a social aspect. Not to mention, we undertook a huge renovation of our space and expansion. So, now we have the space. Um, it’s been a long time coming. So we we look forward like soon as of like next week to start implementing our next phase of more social uh interaction in groups to provide that’s always a missing element. Yeah. Um, so I think the difference of having a big practice, um, we do all the lab work, we have all the things. Um, you know, it’s tremendous to kind of have everything and everything on board that you could possibly need. But in midwifery, you never know if these things are needed. And a smaller practice or someone who just sort of attends a few births here and there might not have the infrastructure that we do. So that’s where it it’s important. Um, and that’s one thing that we’re really good at doing. Uh, which is a different style, but know that with the breadth of experience, we mostly just do nothing. Uh, which is great.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Super cool. Super cool. Okay. Who would be an ideal fit for you and your practice and your team there? Like walk us through that.

Adrienne Brown: Well, you know, over many years of understanding about midwifery, um, anyone is an ideal fit. I mean, obviously medically there is such a thing that some people will not be appropriate for our care and we’re very clear to let them know and that’s another thing that we do really well. We have people who we really say, “Hey, it’s not in your best interest to give birth in a birthing center. you need to be in a hospital setting because hey of this history or you have a blood clotting disorder that probably you’re going to be fine. However, we we need to interface with maternal fetal medicine. And we need to bring you know we know enough that um you know and because we do you know all the lab work and even you know more than most everyone does. We can discover oh coincidentally you have Graves disease like you need to be under the care of an endocrinologist. You could probably still go on and have uh a fine child birth even in the birth center. But, you know, unless we look at this broader approach, we’re missing things. Um, and so outside of medical indications that may not be such a good plan or might just be untenable for someone to birth here in the center, um, we enjoy the fact that we’re a good fit for for anyone. Um, I mean, obviously certain people come to us. Um, unfortunately we’re we don’t take Medicaid. We don’t, you know, and I’ve tried a million ways to Sunday about thinking about this, you know, and it just is is in the world of private equity buying up hospitals and cuts to Medicaid, which are coming really badly down the pike. Um, insurance denials, poor reimbursements. There’s so many reasons financially, physically that running this kind of business is actually hard. In fact, I’m going to do a little post about this um about birthing centers around the country shutting down labor and delivery units and hospitals shutting down. So, we might be hardressed as far as maternity care deserts big time because this is a hard business to run. It really is. Um you know, we we run into it every day. So, but ideally we we care for anyone who wants to be here. Obviously, people have to be a little self-motivated. Maybe it would be coming up with the finances to deliver here uh or having insurance coverage that fits. Um but it’s interesting. We have a lot of professionals, uh, older families who are people in their 40s having having maybe even their first babies all down to young families, someone who’s 22 years old, you know, um, and everybody in between, including, you know, non-traditional family systems. Um, we we just meet people where they’re at. And it’s fun that we get to care for a lot of different people. Even people who think I don’t have a high pain tolerance. We’re like, let’s see about that. Um, you know, so I used to think like maybe there’s a certain type of person that comes to midwifery care, but we’re such a different practice that we get all comers. And I’d like to say if if you’re someone who you’re like, I don’t know about birthing in the hospital or I’ve done a little research or I don’t feel comfortable, this is a perfect segue totally for people.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Um, what does the process look like to work with you? Like does people just call and schedule on your your calendar? Do they have to do interview them? Like how does it all work?

Adrienne Brown: Yeah, I mean we we just did a new website. We launched we did a rebranding with this renovation. We have a new new brand, new website, you know, beautiful. That’s working fine. We’ve worked out some glitches with our contact box, but anyway, um you know, it’s important to us that people know. So, we do highly encourage people to do a virtual tour um or an in-person tour rather than just say, “Hey, five of my friends have birthday. I know I want to, you know, maybe they’ve been here before.” We’re still like, “Hey, let’s talk about you and let’s make sure this is a good fit. um because we want this to be a good fit for people and we know we want them to know what they’re getting into and also again like be self-motivated to to do this. Um which doesn’t mean you have to be super into yoga or eating tofu or anything else. You know, again, we meet people where they’re at. as far as pregnancy also is a a really important time where people are making lifelong health changes which that’s really exciting to me. Um so people we we want them to take a a tour um where they can do it virtually with one of our staff members kind of on like a Zoom call or FaceTime or something just to get their questions answered. We’re actually filming today um like a virtual tour that we will put on the website that people can see it before um we have beautiful photos of the space but but anyway so they they can sign up there um they can you know because we take insurance we always do sort of a verification of benefits for people um because this is a laborious process unless they’re like really going to be our patient and have skin in the game a little bit. We don’t do this for everybody, but we say, “Hey, look on your benefits. See if we’re in network with your provider. We could tell you about that.” Um, and that’s another thing that sets us apart is we actually take insurance. Many providers say, “Oh, yeah, we take insurance.” But what that means is they give you a big receipt and say, “Submit that and have at it and battles.” you know, we actually are in network. Um, and again, we have some people who have zero deductible maternity benefits. They’re only paying like 20 2,000 bucks, you know, with their it it’s very affordable. Um,

Dr. Betty DeLass: that’s great. So, cool. Cool. Okay. One of my favorite questions to ask is, what is something that most people don’t know that they that you think that they should know? whether that’s about you, your services, midwifery, like give us a nugget there.

Adrienne Brown: Well, we always run into time and time again that people can use midwifery care as primary maternity care all the way through. They never really have to see a doctor. People are still like, “Oh, I thought I I thought I only just come here to have the B.” It’s like, “No, no, no. We do all of it. We do all the prenatal care. We are autonomous providers. Um, and we’re licensed and skilled at doing this. Um, you know, always I want people to know that midwifery care is a reasonable, you know, um, wonderful, safe option if you’re if you’re healthy and having a low-risisk pregnancy without extenduating other medical factors like we talked about. Um, I’ve gotten away from over the years trying to kind of waste my time to tell people why midwifery safe. Right. Right. I’m more in the business of like why is this actually safer and a more appropriate option for you actually to have better outcomes when we’re dealing with this sort of maternity healthcare crisis and our outcomes are abysmal abysmal abysmal like failing in you know if we look at other nations in the world um it’s like wow um anyway So great having those conversations and knowing that this is should be the standard should be like in Scandinavian countries. Um I recently traveled to Sweden uh Denmark and in meeting those midwives and seeing what they do and how many like they run the show. I mean they mostly have hospitals. They really don’t have a large out of hospital component actually in in Sweden and even Denmark. Yeah. um Netherlands they do and I did some time work with some midwives in Amsterdam but um it’s they run the show like when you get pregnant you go to a midwife. Yeah. And you don’t you know unless you have to go to the doctor and then it’s like why do why would you have to go to the doctor? Let’s break that down. versus here this idea is so foreign um that it it seems so much going against the grain and even receiving push back from your friends and family a little bit. So we’re trying to really change that narrative.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Absolutely.

Adrienne Brown: So that’s what I always want people to know that actually this is quite reasonable.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And uh but it is finding a good provider in somewhere that you feel safest. Um absolutely.

Adrienne Brown: Yes. And I also want people to know that um child birth in pregnancy isn’t always safe. Okay. And this is a really important thing to know. When you’ve been doing this a long time, you realize sometimes things happen outside of what we would anticipate. And that’s where when we get into, you know, this freebirth movement and all this, it’s like, okay, cool. But um it doesn’t always work out the way or you have a situation that you didn’t know about or whatever. So there’s finding that blend and that balance um is key.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Totally. Totally. Yeah. Birth is unpredictable.

Adrienne Brown: Yes.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Yeah. Okay. Next question I have for you. Is there anything special you want to promote to the audience watching? Obviously, you have your new website and your new wing and things like that. Anything else exciting happening?

Adrienne Brown: Well, we’re like I said, we’re trying to focus more on um so creating social supports for people. I think the pandemic was really hard and being a parent in this time and place in the global um you know sort of geopolitical global reality that we have in the world. Um it’s hard it’s hard for parents. the way we work, the way we um eat, the way we raise our children, the resources we have at hand are vastly different um than we had 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 20 years ago. So, navigating this, you know, we think a lot actually about what we can do better. And one of the things time and time again is um yeah, we could do these other things, but what it boils down to is um like stress reduction and calming the nervous system. And we have a lot of parents who are way up here and functioning. This is their default mode. And we’re like, “Oh, that’s what we need to address.” Yes. Um because if we just make this smooth and calming, people are going to do fine having their babies, right? You know, um so anyway, that those are some new things that we want to do as a group. So, we’re part of making this new physical space within the clinics to to have space to do that uh was a big was a big deal. and and we while we would have loved to have like a big studio and yoga and treatment rooms and all this, we don’t quite have that. But we can certainly add more social support, more mindfulness, more stress reduction, um more um conversations for people to explore uh that.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Totally totally agree. Yeah. Cool. Very cool. Thanks for sharing that. Okay, my last and final question for you is what do you want to be known for?

Adrienne Brown: You know, I had um a patient the other day and she’s had a baby with us before. She just had her um third baby and she it was a great compliment to me and to what we do here because she said, you know, I come here uh because I know the way you show up for me and is consistent is consistent. I don’t feel judged and and that is important that we are the same. We’re the same. We’re the same. and how we might approach an urgent matter or a risk factor or having a hard conversation with someone like you know we have to now send you to the hospital because you have hypertension or you know we can they can know that we will consistently show up uh in the same way whether we have to resuscitate the baby or they’re having a medical emergency or everything’s just great. Um, it’s so hard in today’s world to find anything that is consistent and people who really show up in the same way.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Love that.

Adrienne Brown: And we actually have to do a lot of work outside here to do that. And you have to understand most midwives don’t make it three years.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Wow. Really? Okay.

Adrienne Brown: they burn out and you know there’s a myriad of things right they’re not charging enough money it’s not tenable they become resentful to the profession because they feel all their energy is put out and they you know they want to be Mother Teresa whatever and you have to be smart about this and you have to you know and have this balance and we we actually take this work really really seriously it’s not just like this you know for us.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Yeah.

Adrienne Brown: And that is always the goal, that we are professional in our pursuit of this and that we’re consistent and that no matter what else is going on, we’re right there present. Um, so hey, if we can do that then

Dr. Betty DeLass: Amazing. I love that. That’s so great. I love that. Okay. Where can we find you? Website, social media, location, all things like that so we can direct people to you.

Adrienne Brown: Yeah, we have this the fortuitous uh fortune of being located in this marvelous environment right up in the mountains on West Edge Boulevard um kind of off of the freeway. It’s easy to get here. Pe people actually love to come here. They’re like, “Ah, you know, we’re not we’re not down in the thick of it of Yep. you know, it’s easy to to get here and it’s it’s very peaceful setting. You have amazing views of the mountains and everything from our rooms. Um and that’s that’s really important because actually they’ve done studies on healing and if people are looking at nature uh it’s their healing improves and that’s again again so intentionally of how I designed the space with the art with the views with the furnishings very very intentional that improve people’s well-being and healing um if you look at some of those data it’s it’s interesting so anyway but we’re up located up We’re um our website was wasatchmidwifery.com. We’re on Instagram at @wasatchmidwife. Um we are have Facebook. Um and we will we do have a YouTube channel which we will be tossing, you know, now that I can have some time. Look, that’s one thing we’re going to put a lot of content on there about common questions we get.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Love it.

Adrienne Brown: I envision people watching a video of how to latch their baby at 2 in the morning and they can watch a little video that we have.

Dr. Betty DeLass: Yep. Perfect. Love that. Love that. Well, thank you so much for jumping on here, for doing the spotlight series, for all that you’re doing in the community here in Utah and even like the patients that we mutually share and all the things. So, thank you so much.

Adrienne Brown: Yeah, thank you.