Midwifery Services on Long Island
Prenatal care, birth, and postpartum support with certified nurse midwives at our Hewlett, NY center, serving families across Nassau County and Long Island.
What Midwife-Led Care Looks Like Here
Care with a midwife means one small team knows you from your first prenatal visit through your baby’s first weeks. At Birthing Center Long Island in Hewlett, certified nurse midwives provide your prenatal care, attend your labor and birth, and follow you and your baby into the postpartum weeks. You are not handed between providers at each stage.
Care here is built on shared decision-making. Your midwife explains what the evidence supports, what your options are, and what happens next, and the decisions stay yours. Visits are long enough to have that conversation properly.
If you are weighing midwifery services on Long Island and want to know what that actually looks like week to week, the rest of this page walks through it.
Prenatal Care With Your Midwife
Prenatal appointments here run longer than a standard obstetric visit, which leaves room for an actual conversation alongside the clinical work. Your midwife assesses your health and your baby’s growth at every visit, orders and reviews your labs, and talks through nutrition, sleep, movement, and anything else affecting how you feel.
Visits are scheduled monthly until 28 weeks, every two to three weeks until 36 weeks, then weekly until labor begins.
Because you see the same small team throughout, the midwife who attends your birth already knows your history and what matters to you by the time labor starts. That continuity is the practical difference between midwife-led care and a rotating provider model.
Many families also take our childbirth education classes during the second and third trimesters.
Labor and Birth at Our Hewlett Center
Your labor is attended by a certified nurse midwife who stays with you, rather than checking in between other patients. Support is hands-on and low intervention by default, which means movement, position changes, warm water, and steady presence come before anything else.
Our birth suites are built for that. Each suite has a deep tub, room to move and change position, dimmable lighting, a birthing ball, and space for your partner and your doula.
What Your Midwife Does During Labor
- Stays with you through active labor rather than arriving at the end
- Monitors your baby’s heartbeat at regular intervals with a handheld doppler
- Supports water immersion for labor, and for birth if you choose it
- Helps you find positions that work as labor changes
- Keeps you eating, drinking, and moving
- Guides your partner on how to help
- Cares for you and your baby through the third stage and the first hours afterward
Plans change during labor, and that is normal rather than a failure. Some people plan to birth in the water and decide to get out. Some plan to move freely and want to be still. Your midwife works with the labor you are having.
Postpartum and Newborn Care
Care does not stop when you go home. Your midwife checks on you and your baby in the first 24 to 48 hours after birth, with a newborn assessment, newborn screening, and lactation support.
Later visits cover your physical recovery, how feeding is going, and how you are doing emotionally. Postpartum mood changes are common and worth raising early rather than waiting for the six-week visit. Contraception is available at that six-week appointment if you want it.
If feeding is difficult, say so at the first check. Most feeding problems are easier to solve in week one than in week four.
Holistic Gynecology
Care continues beyond the postpartum period. Well-woman visits, contraception, and ongoing gynecological care are covered in our holistic gynecology.
Who Midwife-Led Care Is For
Midwife-led birth center care suits healthy pregnancies that are progressing without complications requiring a hospital setting. Your midwife reviews your history at your first visit and keeps that conversation open through your third trimester, so nothing is decided on the day.
Care here is generally a good fit if you are carrying one baby, your pregnancy is uncomplicated, you are at full term when labor begins, and you want a low intervention birth with continuous support.
Some pregnancy histories and conditions make a hospital the safer setting. That is a clinical conversation rather than a checklist, and your midwife will be straightforward with you about it. If your circumstances change during pregnancy, the plan changes with them.
If you are not sure whether you are a candidate, schedule a consultation with a midwife and bring your history and your questions.
Come See the Space Before You Decide
Most people decide in the room, not on the website.
Midwifery Questions We Hear Most
What does a midwife do during pregnancy and birth?
A certified nurse midwife provides your prenatal care, attends your labor and birth, and cares for you and your baby afterward. In practice, that means clinical assessment at every prenatal visit, ordering and reviewing labs and ultrasounds, hands-on labor support, delivering your baby, repairing tears where needed, and newborn checks. Certified nurse midwives are trained in emergency care during pregnancy and childbirth and newborn resuscitation, and they consult with or refer to physicians when a pregnancy needs that level of care.
What is the difference between a certified nurse midwife and other midwives?
A certified nurse midwife is a registered nurse with graduate-level midwifery training, licensed by the state, and able to prescribe medication. Other credentials, including certified midwife and certified professional midwife, involve different training routes and different scopes of practice depending on the state. The midwives at our center are certified nurse midwives licensed in New York.
What is the difference between a midwife and an obstetrician?
Both are qualified to care for you in pregnancy. The practical differences are usually visit length, continuity, and how quickly intervention is reached for. Midwifery appointments tend to be longer, you see a smaller team, and the default is to intervene when there is a clinical reason rather than by routine. Obstetricians are surgeons as well as physicians, which makes them the right choice when a pregnancy has complications needing that expertise. Plenty of families move between the two during a pregnancy, and your midwife will tell you plainly if that is the safer route for you.
Where can I find midwifery services on Long Island?
Midwife-led care on Long Island is available through freestanding birth centers, hospital-based midwifery practices, and home birth midwives, and the settings differ more than the credential does. Our center at 1512 Broadway in Hewlett provides midwife-led prenatal, birth, and postpartum care for families across Nassau County. A tour is the fastest way to compare settings, because the room tells you more than a website can.
Can I see a midwife if this is my first baby?
Yes. First-time parents make up a large share of the families we care for. First labors are often longer, which is one of the reasons continuous support during labor matters.
Does insurance cover care with a midwife?
Often, yes. We work out of network with most plans, including Medicaid and marketplace options. Coverage varies, so we run a benefits check and walk you through what your plan covers and what you would owe before you commit. See our insurance page for the plans we work with.
What is your relationship with Holistic Midwifery New York?
We work in partnership with Holistic Midwifery New York, a separate midwifery practice serving families in New York City and on Long Island. The two practices share a phone line, so you may hear or see both names when you get in touch. That is expected and does not mean you have reached the wrong place.
If you are booking through this site, you are arranging care at Birthing Center Long Island, 1512 Broadway in Hewlett. If a different setting would suit you better, say so at your consultation and we will point you in the right direction.
I am deciding between a home birth and a birth center. Can you help me think it through?
Yes, and it is a good conversation to have before you are far along. Births at our center take place in our Hewlett birth suites, with a tub, room to move, and a midwife with you through labor. Some families want that middle ground between home and hospital. Others want to be at home, and some are better served in a hospital.
Bring the question to a consultation. Your midwife will talk through what each setting offers and be straight with you about which one fits your situation, including if the answer is not us.
Reviewed by Judy Ribner, DNP, CNM, on September 2, 2026.
This page is general information about midwife-led care and is not a substitute for individual medical advice. Talk with your midwife or physician about your own pregnancy, birth, and recovery.