Elizabeth Aviles, a certified nurse midwife from Plano, has attended over 1,200 births since 2011. Initially a labor and delivery nurse, she quickly realized that hospitals prioritizing profit and provider convenience over natural birth experiences were not the ideal environment for women seeking natural childbirth. This led her to establish Baby Catcher, PLLC, a midwifery-led homebirth practice advocating for personalized and intimate natural births.
Aviles emphasizes the U.S.'s high infant and maternal mortality rates, partly attributed to fast-paced, profit-driven, and reactive versus proactive prenatal care. She highlights the contrast between the guidance midwives provide, aiming to keep women healthy and low risk for home birth, and the reactive approach of obstetricians who too often categorize pregnancy as a risky medical condition requiring medical management and intervention. She criticizes providers in hospitals for their profit-driven, time constraints, and intervention-heavy methods, resulting in high C-section rates, contrasting with midwifery practices like hers, which maintain rates below 10%.
She promotes a low-intervention approach prioritizing spontaneous, natural, supported labor and birth, emphasizing safety, intimacy, and sacredness. Reflecting on her transition from hospital to home birth practice, Aviles emphasizes, “I saw what we did to women, and then I saw what women can do!”
