Sarah Hamid, a student midwife in the Los Angeles area, joins Augustine to talk about what the direct entry midwifery education crisis has meant for students this summer. Sarah is a student at the National College of Midwifery (NCM), which lost its MEAC accreditation, and she walks through the timeline as she has documented it, from MEAC’s decision to step away from federal recognition to the withdrawal of NCM’s accreditation. She also explains how the acronyms fit together (MEAC, NARM, PEP, CPM) and what her own options look like in California.

The conversation goes beyond the timeline to the reasons students feel left behind: the financial pressure on a student population that is largely working-class, parenting, and rural, and the lack of communication and accountability from the institutions involved. Sarah and Augustine also talk about holding compassion for institutional leaders while still naming harm, why midwifery education should be midwife-led, and what preceptors and senior midwives can do today.

What We Cover
-Sarah’s path to midwifery and her experience as an NCM student near the end of her education
-A plain-language breakdown of MEAC, NARM, PEP, CPM, and how direct entry education connects to licensure
-The timeline of this summer’s events: the Department of Education report, MEAC’s statement, and NCM’s suspension and withdrawal
-What the federal report alleges, as Sarah describes it from publicly available documents
Sarah’s options in California, including PEP, the bridge program, and the California-specific exam
-Who student midwives are right now, and what the cost of becoming a midwife looks like
-Holding frustration and compassion together, and why the lack of accountability is the central issue
-The case for midwife-led education programs and midwifery-specific business training
-Support for student midwives who are parents
-Why this connects to the devaluing of feminized labor, with a book recommendation
-A direct ask to preceptors and senior midwives

Resources Mentioned
Sarah’s Substack, with the full chronological timeline: sarahmichalhamid.substack.com
Sarah’s social media: www.instagram.com/talesofadai
The Farmer and the Obstetrician: https://a.co/d/07rcWj7x
Start a Midwifery Business Right: https://www.midwiferywisdomcollective.com/ceu-courses-midwifery/starting-a-birth-business-right
Student Midwife’s Keepsake Journal: https://www.midwiferywisdomcollective.com/student-midwife-journal

Navigating a midwife license suspension is every practitioner's nightmare. Salli Gonzalez shares the reality of her experience.

Salli joins us to discuss the sudden news of her license suspension following a baby's death. This conversation addresses the vulnerability of midwives in the current climate, specifically regarding potential repercussions for comments made in online spaces. We look at how quickly professional standing can be challenged and the anxiety that surrounds public discourse for providers.

Beyond the legal and professional, protecting your midwifery practice requires both emotional resilience and a clear understanding of the risks involved in today's digital landscape, especially when maintaining online professional boundaries.

Subscribe for weekly midwifery wisdom breakdowns, and let us know in the comments: what steps are you taking to maintain your professional boundaries? 💬

0:00 The Sudden License Suspension
2:04 A Career Built on Intimate Care
4:25 The Day Everything Changed
8:54 The Accidental Midwife Attorney
24:29 The Weight of Unexpected Outcomes
30:26 Treating Regulatory Boards as Prosecutors
36:04 Screening for Success and Safety

Resources & Links:

💰 Support Salli's legal defense: gofund.me/a54e40705
🌐 Octavia LaVon Martinez, Esq: https://www.octaviamartinezlaw.com/
🐦 Follow Octavia on X: @OctaviaLaVon
📚 Take Augustine's Defensive Charting Courses: https://www.midwiferywisdomcollective.com/ceu-courses-midwifery
🏡 Join our private community: skool.com/midwiferywisdom

Martha Redpath, a CNM turned burnout and boundaries coach, joins Augustine to talk about what happens when the people who hold space for everyone else run out of space for themselves. Martha traces her path from home birth CNM in Vermont to founder of Provider Space Coaching — a pivot that came out of her own reckoning with alcohol, burnout, and eventually grief after losing her husband.

The conversation moves through the state of community-based midwifery today (closures, legal exposure, the pressure CPMs face that CNMs often don't), the martyrdom culture baked into midwifery training, and what it actually looks like to teach boundaries as a clinical skill rather than a personality trait. Martha and Augustine also get into nervous system regulation, the difference between CNM and CPM entry points into boundary-setting, and why the ability to disappoint people — kindly and clearly — might be the most underrated skill in this profession.

Key Topics

• Martha's path: nursing → home birth CNM in Vermont → 10 years in a small hospital birthing center → burnout, alcohol, and the pivot to coaching
• The current landscape for community-based midwives: closures, lawsuits, board investigations, and the Texas trend of using public social media posts as testimony against midwives
• Historical spikes in home birth rates (Ricki Lake's documentary, the ACA, COVID) and where rates stand now
• CNM vs. CPM pathways into professional boundary-setting — and why CPMs often enter the field less boundaried
• The martyrdom/"lone cowboy" culture in community-based midwifery, and generational shifts around it
• Martha's coaching framework: strengths-based reflection across eight life domains, nervous system regulation, "tiny habits," and discomfort resilience
• Grief as a parallel thread to birth work, following the loss of Martha's husband
• The value of one truly safe confidant ("marble jar friends") for midwives carrying constant on-call stress

Resources Mentioned:

Martha's coaching practice: providerspacecoaching.com — sliding scale fees, one-off debrief calls, and a six-week burnout package built around The Big Life Journal

Student Midwife's Keepsake Journal — the HIPAA-appropriate documentation journal mentioned in the mid-episode ad, with space for 100 birth records and built-in compliance guidance