About Ceci | Full Moon Midwifery

I love being a midwife. I love this sacred calling that fully employs all my personal skills and qualities. Beyond my clinical knowledge and experience, I use my intuition, my hands, my vision, and my senses of smell and sound to help each woman recognize and engage her own power. As part of my work, I employ one of the greatest, most therapeutic health care skills in the world: I listen. Midwifery is a practice of art, science, and spirituality, and should you choose to work with me, I will care for you with all my knowledge and skills, and with reverence.

I have worked as a midwife for over 20 years, in hospitals, homes, and birth centers. I have been the primary midwife, assisted other midwives, taught medical students, medical residents, nurses, nursing students, and midwifery students. I have worked with “high risk” and “normal-healthy” or “low risk” midwifery clients, providing compassion and love as well as midwifery and nursing expertise. I am now happy to offer my services for home and birth center births.

At Full Moon Midwifery, I combine modern western medicine with traditional and spiritual healing modes. I have had the pleasure of studying with curanderas and other healers, and have learned much about working with our hearts and souls. I continue to study with other healers and employ the art of healing with heart and hands in all of my work.

I practice Arvigo Maya Abdominal Massage Therapy, in which I hold a certificate specifically for pregnancy care, as well as general health care for all people. I include CranioSacral Therapy, specializing in pregnancy, labor, postpartum, and infants. With these techniques I can help you experience optimum balance in pregnancy, relieve discomforts as your body adjusts to pregnancy, and help your baby get into the best position for optimal growth and labor.

Full Moon Midwifery offers a full spectrum of care, including Sacred Pregnancy groups and Dancing for Birth to support, honor, and celebrate you as you grow a new life. After your baby is born, you can continue the care and community with Infant Massage, Lactation Education and support, Mother-Baby MILK and Infant Massage Circles, and Dancing for Birth for as long as you like.
As your midwife, I will support your transition to motherhood throughout your pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. It is an honor and a joy to be a part of that sacred journey.

Formal Education

• BA Art, University of Washington
• BS Nursing, Seattle University
• MS Nursing, University of California San Francisco
• Certificates in Family Nurse Practice, Nurse Midwifery, and Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner, University of California San Diego

Licenses

• Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner (ARNP) in Washington State
• Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM)
• Certified Family Nurse Practitioner (CFNP) with prescriptive authority

Further Training

• Arvigo Maya Abdominal Massage Therapy

• Craniosacral Therapy

• Ancestral Hands On Healing

• Infant Craniosacral Therapy

• Prenatal and Visceral Massage

It is said that the most wonderful work in the world is motherhood and the next most wonderful is midwifery. I am indeed fortunate to have the two best jobs in the world. I have two teen age children who teach and challenge me daily and a wonderful husband, Paul, to whom I’ve been married for over 30 years. I enjoy cooking, fermenting, art, gardening, dancing, and experimenting with all of the above. I enjoy the many classes that help me continually improve your holistic midwifery and health care.

Philosophy

My practice and philosophy of midwifery are based on the following:

Most of us are made to reproduce and have babies and to nourish them through pregnancy and beyond.

Some of us need a little help at different parts of reproduction: getting pregnant, staying pregnant, staying healthy, safe birth for mom and baby, breastfeeding, postpartum recovery. Fortunately, there are many modalities to call on for assistance in any of these and most treatments are still within the realm of “normal” allowing a woman to birth naturally, as she wishes.

The best way to help support the mama baby bond is to love the mother.

“To strengthen the mother-baby bond, love the mother.”Klaus

Moms love their babies far more than anyone else ever can. If we provide good gentle supportive care for the mother, the mother will provide the best care possible for her baby.

The most important things a woman’s support people can do is provide a safe space for emotional and physical comfort and support the mom so that she is healthy and safe, baby is healthy, and mom has support, guidance, and unfettered freedom to love and care for her baby.

We are all more than just a body, or a mind…that’s why I provide midwifery care for your baby, body, heart, and soul.

None of us is exactly like another. Good care involves seeing us all as individuals with different needs, histories, desires, and expectations.

A good midwife loves her women and supports them to be ready to give the best care to their babies and grow as women and as mothers through provision of knowledge, education, resources, classes, trust, love, and support for them to trust their own intuition.

“Knowledge decreases fear and in so doing, reduces pain.” Grantly Dick-Read

A good midwife uses all of her senses to gauge what’s going on now and be present in the moment, while simultaneously assessing how to prepare for what’s next.

True midwifery is the art of being able to sit gracefully with the mystery of the unknown.

That, and listening, are the hallmarks of midwifery.

True good safe midwifery includes a judicious blend of trust and preparation based on knowledge, skills, experience, and intuition.

The best midwife-client relationship is based on trust, honesty, and respect….in both directions. Midwife and woman need to get to know one another. This is why we have long visits at Full Moon Midwifery.

Birth is about power:
the power of the unknown, unseen, invisible
the power of a woman’s body and spirit to grow and love and birth and continue to nourish her baby
the power of love which grows throughout the pregnancy and through her child’s life
the power of our minds and spirit to shape what transpires physically and emotionally
the power of knowledge to decrease fear and pain

Midwives are specialists in normal healthy pregnancy and birth. We support women in achieving or maintaining a normal healthy pregnancy. If things are not normal, we know what to do, whether it is an action on our part, a prescription, further testing and assessment, life style change that you make, consultation or transfer of care.
We work with other health care practitioners: specialists and generalists. If we need to, we will consult or involve a nutritionist, social worker, OB, family practice doctor, naturopath, physical therapy, hospital, lab, massage, chiropractor, counselor….whatever is needed, as needed.

No one knows your body like you know your body…if you are tuned in and aware: you know what you need

We work together to ascertain what you need, what’s going on, and what, if anything, to do about it: Your Birth Plan is your Personal Care Plan for Birth and we are ALL working to make your birth what you seek. And we ALL have the same goal for your birth, however YOU define it: A safe, healthy, happy, and satisfying birth and birth experience, for mom and for baby.

“Whenever and however you intend to give birth,

your experience will impact your emotions, your mind, your body, and your spirit

for the rest of your life.” Ina May Gaskin

Midwifery Care with Ceci Córdova at Full Moon Midwifery

Midwifery care for your baby, your body, your heart, and your soul means that I recognize the journey and growth through pregnancy and birth into parenthood, and its impact on your life. I know that there is more happening than just a baby growing or just your belly growing or even just a labor happening or you becoming a mother. I know that there are a myriad of emotions running through your heart, a monumental transition in your life which will engage your spirit in growth. But I also know that sometimes not all of that seems easy, or even possible. And most of it requires support and faith as well as confidence in your own abilities and your own willingness to change and be changed.

At Full Moon Midwifery, I take the time to hear your greatest and most pressing concerns as well as those nagging “little worries” that might come to you only in your quiet times. I listen and take you seriously. I support you as you explore the changes in your body and your life. I offer this through listening, through groups and classes.

If you are an especially sensitive individual we will work together to find ways that your gift can enrich your pregnancy and childbirth experiences while minimizing the distractions that that gift sometimes brings. Full Moon Midwifery tends to your heart and soul as well as to your baby and your body changes.

Visits at FMM involve growing a mama as well as a baby and helping you to prepare for this wonderful transformation that is ongoing. This is “spiritual midwifery” for your baby and body, as well midwifery for your heart and soul. This is midwifery for all you are and all you are becoming.

Blessings and good times to you! May you enjoy the many changes, challenges, and joys along the sacred journey of motherhood.

“Birth is not only about making babies.

Birth is about making mothers… strong, competent, capable mothers

who trust themselves and know their inner strength.”Barbara Katz Rothman, PHD

A midwife is a specialist in normal healthy pregnancy and birth. As such, a midwife knows the difference between normal and not-normal and knows how to respond to a not-normal situation. That may involve an action on the part of the midwife or the woman, a change of diet or lifestyle, herbs or medication, additional education or testing, referral to another specialist such as nutritionist, acupuncturist, social worker, or physician. It may simply require that they have heightened awareness. It can involve shared care, or even a transfer of care, if the condition is outside the scope of midwifery. In any case, a midwife is a professional whose primary interest is making sure you receive quality care and high satisfaction, maximizing your health and the health of your baby.

At Full Moon Midwifery, you will experience The Midwives Model of Care™. This is defined as follows:

The Midwives Model of Care™ is a fundamentally different approach to pregnancy and childbirth than contemporary obstetrics.
Midwifery care is uniquely nurturing, hands-on care before, during, and after birth.

Midwives are health care professionals specializing in pregnancy and childbirth who develop a trusting relationship with their clients, which results in confident, supported labor and birth.

While there are different types of midwives practicing in various settings, all midwives are trained to provide comprehensive prenatal care and education, guide labor and birth, address complications, and care for newborns.

The Midwives Model of Care™ is based on the fact that pregnancy and birth are normal life events. The Midwives Model of Care includes:

monitoring the physical, psychological and social well-being of the mother throughout the childbearing cycle
providing the mother with individualized education, counseling, and prenatal care, continuous hands-on assistance during labor and delivery, and postpartum support
minimizing technological interventions and
identifying and referring women who require obstetrical attention.

The application of this model has been proven to reduce to incidence of birth injury, trauma, and cesarean section.