Welcome

Motherland Midwifery is a homebirth midwifery practice based in Philadelphia, PA. We work closely with a small number of families in the Greater Philadelphia Region and South Jersey who share our trust in birth as a natural process. Each expectant mother receives personalized care from a midwifery team that includes Motherland Midwifery owner Christy Santoro, Meredith Klein and an apprentice*. We give information, resources, love and support for women and families to make informed decisions about their pregnancy, birth and parenting journey. We provide a full spectrum of family-centered prenatal, birth and postpartum care.

Midwife means “with woman” not “doing something to woman.” Pregnancy is not a disease, and birth is not a medical event. In our ideal role as midwives during labor and birth, we do very little because in fact, birth is designed to work in case no one but the mother is there. The work of the midwife is to know when to “not do” and to simply be present to bear witness to the strength and capabilities of the woman giving birth as well as to hold the space and provide support and reassurance to allow the natural, wonderfully designed process to unfold, interceding only when truly necessary.

(* Meredith Klein will be on maternity leave starting September 1, 2011. She’ll be returning to practice in 2012. For more information on the birth assistants who will be working with Christy during Meredith’s leave see this post.)