How Juno Midwives Started: From Postnatal Care to Full Midwifery Services

We can’t quite believe it but it has been one year since we officially launched as independent midwives. Some of you may remember we initially launched as The Fourth Trimester, as we had planned to offer postnatal care only whilst we found our feet as independent midwives. This plan very quickly changed after meeting one of our local doulas, Betty, who quickly persuaded us that we needed to offer the full shebang – including labour and birth care. There was, and still is, a real need in East Kent for independent midwives as women’s options for place of birth have been limited by staffing shortages, unit closures and patchy homebirth cover.

We met our first client in May and supported her at the wonderful birth of her baby in June 2023. The high we experienced after that birth was something neither of us had felt when working in the NHS for a long time. The joy of being able to provide care that aligned with our values and that truly respected women’s rights and choices in childbirth was second to none. Our most recent client had a glorious home birth, which still gives us all the feels when we think back to it. Women and birthing people are powerful – any invitation into their birthing space is a privilege.

What Services Have We Provided in Our First Year?

Since that first birth and over the course of our first year of business, we have provided:

• antenatal care (including one-off appointments)
• labour care
• home birth care
• postnatal care
• newborn examinations (one offs and as part of our care packages)
• birth notifications (for those who have chosen to freebirth)
• pregnancy circles
• support for other independent midwives as a second birth attendant

We have connected with an amazing bunch of independent midwives, who always strive to support each other and who have helped us navigate the new world that is independent midwifery. We are grateful to know so many midwives whose philosophy of care aligns with our own and whose experience we can call upon. Shout out to Frances (Our Village Midwife), who has recently set up her independent midwifery business – East Kent is now lucky to have three independent midwives! This means we can support more women and birthing people. We have also had the pleasure of being welcomed into the Folkestone birth world by our local power duo, doulas Lucy and Betty of Folkey Birth Club. Their passion for birth and women’s rights are a force to be reckoned with.

Why We Left the NHS to Become Independent Midwives

Our passion for midwifery has been reignited by leaving the mainstream maternity system. We leave appointments with our clients feeling fulfilled and happy in the knowledge that we have had the time and space to really get to know them and have in-depth conversations about what’s going on for them. The support we are able to provide to our clients as independent midwives is unfortunately almost unheard of in the NHS. We get to meet the whole family (pets included) and there is something incredibly special about being part of that transformative journey.

We are pleased to maintain a good working relationship with our local NHS Trust, so that if and when our clients do need to access their services, it is seamless. We have gone from high levels of imposter syndrome and quietly saying, ‘I’m an independent midwife’ to proudly telling people and usually answering an array of questions about how being an independent midwife works. Questions which we are very happy to answer – the UK needs more independent midwives, so if chatting to us sparks even one midwife’s interest, that’s a win!

What We've Learned From Our First Year in Business

One of the huge learning curves of setting up as independent midwives has been getting to grips with starting a business. We know how to do the midwife bit, but business is a whole new world to us. We’re proud of how far we’ve come and we know there is still a lot of learning to be done! It is undeniably bold to leave a salaried job in the NHS to set up an independent midwifery business, but we can both honestly say that we are significantly happier, and arguably better midwives for having done so. We can’t wait to see where our business takes us!

Finally, a special thank you to all of our clients, the women and their families, who have trusted us to care for them during the rite of passage that is pregnancy, birth and new parenthood – we wouldn’t exist without you.