January 7, 2004
Midwifery milestone
Midwife Pam Bradshaw 'catches' 1,700 babies over the course of 18 years
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
A pioneer in the area is in the process of recreating herself.
Pam Bradshaw, a Certified Nurse Midwife with a solo practice in Traverse City for the past 18 years, is closing her practice and taking a leave of absence from Munson Medical Center. After catching 1,700 babies during that time, at both Osteopathic Hospital and Munson, Bradshaw is starting to shape the next stage in her life.
"I don't consider myself actually retiring but how I reinvent myself is still up in the air," said Bradshaw, who caught her last baby on December 29 and will wind up her practice by February.
Bradshaw's contributions to the community and to the profession, as well as her groundbreaking solo practice and affiliation with local doctors, combine to make her a pioneer, noted Ann Schmittling, a Certified Nurse Midwife in Traverse City.
"She's definitely an inspiration to me, that she had an independent practice and just knowing that she had been involved at that time at the old Osteopathic Hospital," Schmittling said. "That she had been privileged, that she had a thriving practice that was specific: she struggled yet she won respect from the obstetricians and all the family docs."
"The collaborative practice between doctors and midwives was able to grow because of women like Pam," she added.
For Bradshaw, a fundamental component of midwifery is choices for women, choices for families. She terms her approach 'birth unplugged,' where medical and technological interventions are kept to a minimum.
"I love having women meet their goals of non-intervention births, it's really neat," she noted. "But at the same time, you want to have the perfect, healthy baby and that is most important."
As a midwife, she is trained to risk out women, both during pregnancy and during the birth process. Bradshaw established a professional alliance with Dr. William Nowak in 1986, which allowed her to open her practice. He, too, was enrolled in the concept of giving women choices, she said, though initially dubious about midwifery.
As was the rest of the medical community, Bradshaw recalled, though she and a handful of other Certified Nurse Midwives practicing in the area over the years have altered that perception.
"Dr. Nowak was awesome," she said. "He was not in a position to hire me but he did consultation and referrals and that was crucial for staff and hospital privileges."
Bradshaw terms birth as the ultimate women's sporting event and she is the coach. A position that she cherishes and honors.
"There's a beauty to each labor, it goes in its own rhythm, if women are allowed to establish it," said Bradshaw, who stays with a laboring woman all through the process. "People look at pregnancy and birth as a pathology, an illness, but if left on its own, it is really pretty amazing. The baby, bless its little heart, manages the path."
Bradshaw studied nursing at the University of Michigan, graduating from the program in 1973. She then headed to Traverse City and landed a job in coronary intensive care at the former Osteopathic Hospital.
Friends asking her to assist at their home births spurred her interest in nurse midwifery. She declined to attend these home births, recalling that she did not feel comfortable doing so, but determined to learn more about birth. She apprenticed with a birth center in Washington State for a few years before heading to Scotland, the home of nurse midwifery, for her training.
The South Lothian College of Nursing and Midwifery harked back to the old school of nursing and midwifery. Bradshaw said she first had to prove to instructors and students that she was not an arrogant know-it-all American nurse. Once she did so, she relished her training as well as the mentors and older midwives she met.
"It was all black stockings and red capes there," Bradshaw recalled. "I gave a full bed bath and served tea and toast after each birth, it was just what each midwife did there, provided comfort and care."
After graduating from the program, she completed three years as a midwife in the Bronx, working on staff with 25 other midwives. At that time, she was eager to return to Traverse City and create her own business.