FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTVF) - Healthcare during pregnancy is vitally important, but the style of care can look different depending on what route you choose. Alaska, in particular, has the highest density of midwife practice, with 2022 statistics listing 11 midwives per thousand Alaskan births.

“And its very much based around a client or patient centered focus,” explained Tapia Stover, Nurse Midwife at Providence Alaska Medical Center, “around informed consent and making sure that the patient is the driver of their care. I always joke that I’m like the server at a restaurant. I can tell you what’s on the menu, I can recommend some specials, but ultimately the patient is the one who decides what’s best for them and their family.”

Typically, an expectant mother might choose to see a midwife if she prefers a home birth or perhaps more autonomy during the process than might be offered in an average hospital.

“Which not always but tends toward being a more pathologized model of care,” Stover said, “and so midwives tend more towards seeing this as a normal process that requires minimal interventions and really just a lot of support.”

Stover added that close to 30% of all births in Alaska are attended by midwives - sometimes filling a vital role in rural Alaskan healthcare.

“Versus nationally [a percentage] like 1.6, or something in that neighborhood,” she emphasized. “So we’re like four times more utilizing out-of-hospital options than most of the states in the country. In Alaska some of our community midwives go out into the rural areas and some of our nurse midwives do too, especially through the Alaska Native healthcare system.”