About Birth

Jennie Joseph, LM, CPM

The JJ Way®:
Preventing Prematurity and Low Birth Weight Babies in high-risk mothers

Midwife Jennie Joseph has been developing a maternity healthcare system over the last ten years which has finally come to fruition and is currently being launched in the health care arena.  Her system combines elements of a midwifery model of care but also encompasses her own special brand of health-care delivery, aptly named The JJ Way®.  The JJ (Jennie Joseph) Way® has become renowned for its ability to bring forth optimal pregnancy outcomes and has established that no matter what the health status or situation of the mother, her best possible outcome can be achieved using this method.  A recent study conducted with 100 of Jennie’s pregnant clients, who might have been considered to be at risk for a poor pregnancy outcome, revealed unparalleled results with an average birth weight of 7lbs 7ozs and 95% of babies being born at full-term. Remarkably, although the state and national average for poor outcomes among Black women hovers around 15-20%, there were no African Americans or Hispanic premature or low birth weight infants born to the participants in this study.

The March of Dimes reports, “The preterm birth rate has increased more than 20 percent since 1990. The data can be found at www.cdc.gov/nchs. Prematurity is the leading cause of death in the first month of life, and even late preterm infants have a greater risk of respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), feeding difficulties, temperature instability (hypothermia), jaundice and delayed brain development.
 
In 2005, preterm birth costs the nation more than $26.2 billion in medical and educational costs and lost productivity. Average first year medical costs were about 10 times greater for preterm than for term infants.”  marchofdimes.com 2007

Even in the absence of any particular risk factors Jennie’s method has impacted the level of enjoyment, confidence and satisfaction during one of the most pivotal times in a family’s life. Key components of The JJ Way® include listening to women, respecting and honoring their wishes, hearing their concerns and responding to their questions. Empowerment and involvement in their own healthcare enhances the experience of pregnancy, birth and parenting for women and their partners. The JJ Way® particularly aims to fill in the gaps left by the traditional approach to maternity care where women can feel overwhelmed, ill-informed and scared by the ‘busy-ness’ of physicians offices and hospitals.

Jennie has set forth parameters and guidelines for care which can be easily duplicated and emulated by any health professionals providing maternity care.  The implementation of this healthcare delivery system is simple, cost-effective and rewarding. The outcomes speak for themselves.

Jennie Joseph is a British-trained midwife with over 30 years experience.  She runs a busy non-profit maternity health care clinic and birthing center (The Birth Place ) in Central Florida.   Commonsense Childbirth

A Client's Testimony

"The Birth Place was absolutely wonderful to me"

"Being uninsured and discovering you’re pregnant can be a very stressful experience. Fortunately, there is Medicaid to help families who cannot afford healthcare. Unfortunately it can often be an excruciatingly hard process to obtain Medicaid. I applied for Medicaid as soon as I discovered I was pregnant (I was 4 weeks along). A couple of weeks later the application was returned to me with no explanation of what needed to be done. Because it is nearly impossible to reach Medicaid via the telephone, it took an entire day of my husband and I running all over Orlando to find out what needed to be fixed on my application. At last, we were able to resend my application. I knew I wanted to have a natural birth at a birthing center and I had heard wonderful testimonies about The Birth Place in Winter Garden, FL. I decided to go there for my first few prenatal appointments and absolutely loved the midwives so I decided that it was where I wanted to have my baby. They knew that I had applied for Medicaid and that I was waiting for my approval and Medicaid number. Finally, after a few months or so I received a letter in the mail telling me that I had been approved and a card would be sent to me. I waited a couple more months and the card never came. I called Medicaid, and after hours of waiting to talk to someone all they did was tell me that I was eligible and that they would order another card to be sent to my house. Once again, I waited for 6 weeks and the card never came. By this time it was getting close to when the birthing center needed to start billing Medicaid for their services. Finally, after some agonizing phone calls made by me and The Birth Place, my Medicaid was straightened out. By this time I was 37 weeks along! The Birth Place was absolutely wonderful to me during this process. They never once pressured me about my insurance situation and they continued to give me excellent prenatal care even when it looked like the Medicaid wasn’t going to work at all! Because of them I was able to have a wonderful pregnancy and birth a very healthy baby! It is reassuring to know that there are places out there like The Birth Place that are willing to give women excellent prenatal care no matter what the situation is. I can’t thank them enough!"  Brittany Sligar

 'Behold, I will bring them from the north country, And gather them from the ends of the earth,
 Among  them the blind and the lame, The woman with child and The one who labors with child,  together,
 A great throng shall return there...And My people shall be satisfied with My goodness, says the LORD.'
 Jeremiah 31:8, 14
~~~
©2011 Charis Childbirth Services, All Rights Reserved
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March 2011