The Midwives: Lauren Guehl

I joined the midwife staff at Lone Star OBGYN when I relocated to San Antonio in June 2010 from Austin. I earned a Masters in Nursing in 2007 from Case Western Reserve University, and today I am a Certified Nurse-Midwife and a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner. I obtained my Bachelor’s Degree at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, where I majored in Women’s Studies and History and found the subject of women and their health to be fascinating. I decided to go to nursing school and when I witnessed my first labor and birth, I knew I had found the right career path.

After becoming an RN I worked in Labor and Delivery for three years full-time, and continued to work part-time while I was in midwifery school. When I graduated in 2007 I moved to Austin to work at a birthing center, and I was there for three years until I joined Lone Star in June 2010. Working at the birthing center gave me an enormous respect for natural childbirth, and taught me how to recognize when labor is progressing normally and no intervention is needed, and how to recognize when things aren’t going smoothly. Part of being a good midwife is understanding when to be ‘hands off’ and just let things happen naturally, and when to jump in with the appropriate intervention.

I spend my spare time with my partner and our son, Henry, born in 2009. I also enjoy camping, projects around the house, and sewing and craft projects. I love being a midwife, and getting to work with families as they grow- I love the personal strength that childbirth gives women, and I love being a part of that transformation.

I share the following quotation from my ‘Hand-Blessing Ceremony’ (a tradition in midwifery where the hands of new midwives are “blessed” by the more experienced midwives of the community):

“May a divine power enter these hands and guide you as you help mothers and babies for the rest of your life, and may love and courage stay with you always. You have been called to take this journey, and you leave tonight with a blessing on your hands - remember that to be a midwife is an honor, to share in the lives of women is a privilege.”