Peggy Cohen, licensed midwife and witness to over 500 births, began her professional journey with a degree in Art Therapy. After graduating, she took a job apprenticing with a midwife in Ohio. “The job just fell into my lap,” says Cohen. One day a local midwife, Piper, asked her to assist at a home birth. “She must have liked how I worked and I must have liked her and what I was doing, because I found myself doing the same thing for the next four years.” When Peggy realized she was doing more births than art therapy, she decided to go to midwifery school. She studied at Seattle Midwifery School (SMS) where their three year program, modeled after European midwifery schools, specifically focuses on attending home deliveries. The program requires attendance at 100 deliveries, 50 of which need to be managed by the student. The program has a good balance of academic and practical experience, teaching everything you would want to know about pregnancy, labor, delivery, postpartum and newborn care. “I think what sets SMS apart from the medical model of training,” Cohen says, “is the fact that they emphasize supporting the natural process of birth rather than managing labor and delivery.” She graduated in 1994 and stayed for one year in Seattle, filling in for other midwives per diem. In early 1995, she gave birth to her first child at home.
Five months later, she moved to Burlington with her growing family and created a partnership with Nan Reid, also an SMS graduate. Cohen and Reid were partners for 10 years, working from the same foundation, sharing on-call duties. In 2005, Reid left the practice to spend more time with her family and Cohen transitioned to a solo practice.
Recently, she has collaborated with a new partner, Emily Zolten, licensed in 2006. Their office is in Burlington, where they see their clients for office visits. They serve a large area, Cohen says, and travel up to two hours to see families. Most of their clients, however, are within one hour of them. They offer pre-natal care, home birth delivery, and post partum care. “I love what I do; I have such a great job. It’s an amazing part of people’s lives and so much fun to be part of it,” she says.
Cohen talks about wanting to make the experience of birth a fulfilling, happy one. One in which her clients feel secure, confident and well supported. Cohen says, “Birth is a great opportunity to become empowered, such an important time.” She focuses on a healthy safe process, providing support, good care and giving encouragement. “I hold a lot of responsibility,” she says, “which I take seriously. On my watch, I want everything to go as perfectly as it can. I try to stay out of the way, monitor, and make sure the course is clear.”
She believes in giving information about pregnancy and delivery so that you are naming the course you take, what tests you want, whether you are ready or not. In labor, she likes to give lots of options, moving around or being well supported as baby comes down. “Whatever works!” she says. She also prides herself in having good networking skills and has a good working relationships with physicians with which she can refer folks who are outside the normal scope.
She uses homeopathic remedies when appropriate, which she describes as “mild but powerful,” and monitoring equipment but does not intervene if not necessary. She carries herbs and allopathic medications, again, using them only if appropriate. She attends lots of water births and has birthing tubs for rent. Cohen is taking new clients, and her availability varies month to month.
I asked her, What have you learned from witnessing 500 babies come into the world? She answered, “The amazing power that women have, and the fact that birth works, we just have to set the right tone.”
