Business new to Tucson offers more options for expecting mothers

This could be mostly about the business behind the births or, perhaps, about the birth of a new business.

But Tricia Nast says the most exciting aspect of the story is that there are more options for Tucson’s expecting mothers.

Nast, a former labor nurse and the first certified nurse midwife to work at Carondelet St. Joseph’s Hospital in 23 years, is teaming with Dr. Andrea Mainman to offer expecting mothers what she calls a collaborative model.

Simply put: Nast will deliver the baby if the pregnancy stays low risk, but Mainman will be available for backup. The women are working together in the first MomDoc office to open in Tucson. MomDoc is an Arizona-based family business that’s been in Maricopa County for 40 years.

Its midwifery services will extend even to women who might not have a natural birth option because they are high risk due to advanced age or a previous cesarean section.

”This is exceptionally exciting for those women who may have high-risk pregnancies who would have otherwise not been able to use a midwife in the past,” said Kelly Raach, director of marketing for Carondelet St. Joseph’s Hospital.

Raach said the goal is to offer families more options “for natural birthing options with immediate access to an exceptional team of medical professionals should the need for interventions arise.”

The MomDoc office will add more midwives next year and, eventually, another obstetrician.

Chase Currie is an expecting mother, almost four months pregnant, who is pleased about this new option.

As an employee at Carondelet St. Joseph’s Hospital, 350 N. Wilmot Road, Currie wants to have her second child there. She hopes she will only need the assistance of a midwife.

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“It just happened to be perfect timing,” she said of the MomDoc office opening. Having a natural birth is the primary reason Currie wants to be with a midwife.

“There’s more of a personal connection,” said Currie, who works as an infection preventionist at the hospital. “With a physician, it’s primarily clinical, and low-risk pregnancies are not necessarily a clinical thing.”

Nick Goodman, CEO of MomDoc and son of the company’s founder, said the plan is to have all providers with Tucson’s MomDoc office be from Pima County.

MomDoc started providing gynecological and obstetrics care for women in 1976. It has offices in Pinal and Maricopa counties and, he said, the business has grown by 30 percent per year for the last 14 years.

It employs about 300 people statewide, and started including midwives about five years ago.

Tucson already has a network of midwifery services, including El Rio Community Health’s Congress Health Center and Birth & Women’s Health Center.

Those also provide women with higher-risk pregnancies the chance to have a natural birth with a midwife, but the birth must take place at Tucson Medical Center. That’s so there’s medical backup quickly available in case complications arise, said Greta Cohn Gill, director of El Rio’s Midwifery Services.

A woman with a previous cesarean is not eligible for an out-of-hospital birth, she said.

In Arizona, certified nurse midwives are licensed independently as advanced practice registered nurses and do not require physician supervision, said Olga Ryan, health center manager at Birth & Women’s Health Center.

“I believe it is wonderful for the Tucson community to have more midwives in practice,” Gills said of MomDoc joining the Tucson market.