Community Based Midwives are the Anchor with Martha Redpath
Martha Redpath, a CNM turned burnout and boundaries coach, joins Augustine to talk about what happens when the people who hold space for everyone else run out of space for themselves. Martha traces her path from home birth CNM in Vermont to founder of Provider Space Coaching — a pivot that came out of her own reckoning with alcohol, burnout, and eventually grief after losing her husband.
The conversation moves through the state of community-based midwifery today (closures, legal exposure, the pressure CPMs face that CNMs often don't), the martyrdom culture baked into midwifery training, and what it actually looks like to teach boundaries as a clinical skill rather than a personality trait. Martha and Augustine also get into nervous system regulation, the difference between CNM and CPM entry points into boundary-setting, and why the ability to disappoint people — kindly and clearly — might be the most underrated skill in this profession.
Key Topics
- Martha's path: nursing → home birth CNM in Vermont → 10 years in a small hospital birthing center → burnout, alcohol, and the pivot to coaching
- The current landscape for community-based midwives: closures, lawsuits, board investigations, and the Texas trend of using public social media posts as testimony against midwives
- Historical spikes in home birth rates (Ricki Lake's documentary, the ACA, COVID) and where rates stand now
- CNM vs. CPM pathways into professional boundary-setting — and why CPMs often enter the field less boundaried
- The martyrdom/"lone cowboy" culture in community-based midwifery, and generational shifts around it
- Martha's coaching framework: strengths-based reflection across eight life domains, nervous system regulation, "tiny habits," and discomfort resilience
- Grief as a parallel thread to birth work, following the loss of Martha's husband
- The value of one truly safe confidant ("marble jar friends") for midwives carrying constant on-call stress
Resources Mentioned:
Martha's coaching practice: providerspacecoaching.com — sliding scale fees, one-off debrief calls, and a six-week burnout package built around The Big Life Journal
Martha's coaching practice: providerspacecoaching.com — sliding scale fees, one-off debrief calls, and a six-week burnout package built around The Big Life Journal
Student Midwife's Keepsake Journal — the HIPAA-appropriate documentation journal mentioned in the mid-episode ad, with space for 100 birth records and built-in compliance guidance
