Phoenix Midwife Services
Midwifery
Since 2003, Marinah V. Farrell has offered community midwifery care, with a special focus on homebirth and midwifery as activism. Currently, Marinah is not attending births. If you are looking for a homebirth midwife of color please reach out to Arizona Birthworkers of Color for referrals, or the Arizona Department of Health for a full listing of Arizona based midwives.
Somatic Experiencing
Somatic Experiencing (SE™) is a body-oriented therapeutic model applied in multiple professions and professional settings—psychotherapy, medicine, coaching, teaching, and physical therapy—for healing trauma and other stress disorders. It is based on a multidisciplinary intersection of physiology, psychology, ethology, biology, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics and has been clinically applied for more than four decades. Trauma impacts physical health, mental health, learning, and multiple other aspects of an individual’s life. The SE approach offers education and clinical tools to those in the “helping” professions — therapists, medical professionals, addiction professionals, social workers, first responders, educators, and counselors in religious settings. We also serve as a resource for the media to educate consumers on how to seek help. We know that trauma can result from a wide variety of stressors: war, natural disasters, emotional abuse, loss, domestic conflict, accidents. We also know that it can be overcome— with the right knowledge, tools, and support system. That’s why we’re dedicated to helping the helpers. Because when we do that successfully, we can achieve our vision of transforming lives through healing trauma.
“The journey toward a vital, spontaneous life means more than alleviating symptoms – it means transformation. . . Transformation is the process of changing something in relation to its polar opposite. . . This is a profound metamorphosis.”—Dr. Peter Levine, Somatic Experiencing pioneer
Marinah has been focusing on becoming a somatic practitioner from the first time she encountered this modality in Mexico in 2010 when she met her first Somatic practitioner and realized the life changing benefit of the practice. After years of midwifery work and the realization of the impacts of trauma in communities of color, and particularly during COVID, she decided to formally study and completed her program in 2022.
Marinah is currently studying with Kate White, an esteemed somatic practitioner since 1999 who has specialized in healing earliest trauma, helping people to find their essence that is caught up in the adaptive strategies from our first years of life. She has studied with all the pioneers in prenatal and perinatal trauma from the baby’s perspective.
Marinah also has studied with Amy Wright Glenn at the Birth, Breath and Death Institute, an innovative organization dedicated to the personal and professional growth of those called to hold space for life’s sacred thresholds. Marinah believes that holding sacred space for both death and birth, at home, is essential for the wellness and healing of humanity.
If you wish to have somatic sessions with Marinah around reproductive health, pregnancy, birth and postpartum, or if you would like to have a End of Life Coach serve your family at home, please contact [email protected]
For more information on what a Somatic Experiencing session may be like, please find more information in this article.
Current Projects
Phoenix Midwife has a long history of community and national advocacy work.
In 2018, the Institute for Medicaid Innovation (IMI) launched the high-value, evidence-based maternal models of care initiative. With support from the Yellow Chair Foundation, a comprehensive report was developed for state Medicaid agencies and Medicaid health plans to support their exploration of opportunities to improve maternal health outcomes. After the release, Medicaid stakeholders, including state Medicaid agencies, health plans, and provider groups, requested more information. In response, IMI launched an 8-part virtual learning series, inviting national experts to dive deeper into the topics highlighted in the report while also sharing their personal experiences and answering participant questions in real time. We are fortunate to now embark upon the third phase of this work, a midwifery learning collaborative (MLC).
The MLC is an intensive 3-year learning collaborative that will provide support, resources, and guidance for state-based teams looking to develop sustainable initiatives to advance midwifery-led models of care for the Medicaid population in their communities. Each team will customize their journey, selecting their focal areas (e.g., licensure, reimbursement, contracting terms and modifications), to ensure that it reflects their needs. The learning collaborative will offer individualized team support with the goal of increased access to the model and better birth outcomes.
States applied to be a part of this collaborative, with Arizona being selected. Our team of BIPOC and community based leaders in maternal health have come together to focus on exploring the current lack of access to the Arizona Healthcare Cost Containment (Medicaid) for midwives and those wishing to use medicaid for midwifery models of care. The lack of access to midwives for communities of color is a detriment and accentuates the dismal outcomes of maternal health in the state.
If you wish to become more involved in the efforts around Medicaid expansion for midwifery access, please contact us [email protected]
Phoenix Midwife and Founder Marinah V Farrell was awarded a subrecipient grant through Maricopa County for her project, “Transforming Health Systems to Support Indigenous Maternal Health”. The award will be used to support:
- Programing in education and training
- the first Arizona Indigenous Birth conference in 2023 which will bring together indigenous maternal health leaders from Arizona and around the country,
- support elder and indigenous participation in community wellness and land sovereignty,
- indigenous data mapping,
- support for indigenous and immigrant certification programs in health-related community care.
- Birth center workshops to improve access to maternity and postpartum care
- Information gathering from Arizona stakeholders related to tribal and immigrant maternal health
- Participation in the Arizona Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring system (PRAMS)
- COVID education and workshops
- And professional support for Marinah V. Farrell to continue her leadership and community support expansion
Past Projects
Phoenix Midwife has a long history of community and national advocacy work.
The MLC is an intensive 3-year learning collaborative that will provide support, resources, and guidance for state-based teams looking to develop sustainable initiatives to advance midwifery-led models of care for the Medicaid population in their communities. Each team will customize their journey, selecting their focal areas (e.g., licensure, reimbursement, contracting terms and modifications), to ensure that it reflects their needs. The learning collaborative will offer individualized team support with the goal of increased access to the model and better birth outcomes.
States applied to be a part of this collaborative, with Arizona being selected. Our team of BIPOC and community based leaders in maternal health have come together to focus on exploring the current lack of access to the Arizona Healthcare Cost Containment (Medicaid) for midwives and those wishing to use medicaid for midwifery models of care. The lack of access to midwives for communities of color is a detriment and accentuates the dismal outcomes of maternal health in the state.
If you wish to become more involved in the efforts around Medicaid expansion for midwifery access, please contact us [email protected]
Dignity Birth Campaign, supported by Core Align’s Innovation Lab, is a leadership project focused on dignity for midwives. This was a collaboration with Compassionate Birth Project , the guidance and wisdom of Robyn Sheldon of Mama Bamba, and the Midwives Alliance of North America. Our team offered workshops across the world, as well as presented at the International Confederation of Midwives conference in Toronto, Canada. Although our team has not been active, this initiative continues to be an inspiration for future collaborations that prioritize bringing the heart back to midwifery and the dignity and value of midwives around the world.
A collaboration of Parteras de Maiz (do link to that page?), Arizona Birthworkers of Color and Cihuapactli Collective, with support from Social Movements in Innovation, was a project designed to have birth workers of color from three organizations to come together and create a report in Arizona on birth work as well as to work together on relationship and collaboration.
Please see the report here.
