A16
FROM PAGE ONE
Wallowa County Chieftain
Baby:
Wednesday, October 6, 2021
WALLOWA MOUNTAIN MIDWIFERY
WHO: Eleanor (Nora) Hawkins
Continued from Page A1
WHAT: Midwifery
year” is the nine months of
pregnancy and the fi rst three
months of a child’s life.
Also, since a midwife
specializes in child delivery,
pre- and postnatal care, she
does not do or have training
in many of the other skills a
general practitioner does.
WHERE: 301 E. 1st St., Wallowa
HOURS: Open Wednesdays or by appointment
PHONE: 541-263-1724
EMAIL: info@wallowamountainmidwifery.com
ONLINE: wallowamountainmidwifery.com
which includes prenatal
care, birth and postpartum
care. She said that is less
than a mother would pay for
a hospital delivery.
Long-time Wallowan
Hawkins, who is the sixth
generation of a local fam-
ily, is not the fi rst in her
line to be a midwife. Her
great-grandmother,
Mae
Schaeff er Hawkins, was a
midwife in the lower valley
during the 1920s and 1930s.
“I did not know that when
I wanted to become a mid-
wife. My dad told me after
I’d gone back to school,
‘That’s what my grand-
mother did.’ Barter was
common and she used to
trade things to people who
didn’t have money,” she
said. “There are various
things around the ranch that
came from her delivering
someone’s babies.”
Her dad, Merel Hawkins,
who is retired now, long
ran a ranch on the outskirts
of town. Ancestors of Mae
Schaeff er Hawkins home-
steaded a nearby ranch in
Freedom of choice
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Nora Hawkins stands in front of her new Wallowa Mountain Midwifery in Wallowa, on
Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2021, which is in the former Home Independent Telephone Co. building.
the 1870s.
Nora recalls what many
of the buildings in down-
town Wallowa used to be.
Next to the old telephone
company — built in 1917,
according to a story she
showed from the Wallowa
Sun — was a bowling alley.
Next to that was a movie
theater. Across the street,
where Wallowa Food City
now is, once was an auto-
TIME TO PLAN
for next year.
Historic preservation
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offers Operating Lines of Credit
and term loans on Equipment and Land.
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JOHN BAILEY
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Loan Officer
Specializing in Agricultural & Commercial Loans.
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101 Hogan Street • 541-426-4205
mobile dealership.
“I’m excited to give a
facelift to this old building
and continue to want to help
revitalizing of downtown
Wallowa,” Hawkins said.
When not working as
a midwife, she said, “I’m
butchering chickens, help-
ing run a ranch, being a
mother to a 2-year-old and
I’m expecting another one
soon.”
She said she’ll have a
midwife come from Port-
land a bit before her due
date.
Member FDIC
Hawkins obtained a
matching grant from the
Oregon State Historic Pres-
ervation Offi ce, which
administers the Diamonds
in the Rough grant through
the Oregon Parks and Rec-
reation Department. She
said the grant helped refur-
bish some of the building’s
exterior.
With the grant — and
her own funds — she was
able to get new awnings and
masonry work done. She
elected to keep the word
“TELEPHONE” at the top
of two sides of the historic
building. Since buying the
building Hawkins said she
also put on a new roof and
has completed a full remodel
of the inside.
“It was in a state of disre-
pair,” she said.
Open for business
Prior to opening about
a month ago, Hawkins set
up two examination rooms
— one with a double bed
and the other with a typ-
ical medical examination
table — and a couple of sit-
ting rooms. The front room
has a small table and toys
to keep older siblings occu-
pied while mom is getting
examined.
Hawkins has her offi ce
day on Wednesdays. Wind-
ing Waters Medical Clinic
in Wallowa has also started
leasing the building on
Thursdays for its clinic to
have a space in Wallowa
as they prepare to build its
own place.
She hopes to have both
massage and acupuncture
available in the building
soon, as well.
Hawkins received train-
ing and national certifi -
cation as a certifi ed pro-
fessional midwife, state
licensure as a licensed
direct-entry midwife and
certifi cation as an interna-
tionally board-certifi ed lac-
tation consultant.
She said she believes
she’s the only licensed mid-
wife in Northeast Oregon.
Although she gets calls
from all over Eastern Ore-
gon, she only serves Wal-
lowa and Union counties,
working closely with Wal-
lowa Memorial Hospital
and Grande Ronde Hospital
and their practitioners.
She said she gener-
ally charges $4,000 for the
package of her services,
One of Hawkins’ top pri-
orities is to give expectant
families the options they
wish for their deliveries.
“My hope is to preserve
the opportunities to have
birth choice, the location,
the mode, who is attend-
ing … the freedom for
birth choices of their own,”
she said. “It’s not the right
choice for everyone. Some
families, if they’re low-risk
and it works, then great.
… I just want there to be
choice. … Sometimes that
means a family wants home
birth; other families choose
a package where I pro-
vide midwifery care pre-
natally and postpartum but
they have a planned hos-
pital birth, sort of a hybrid
option.”
Sometimes those choices
mean the mother — or
Hawkins — will opt out of
a home delivery and decide
to go to a hospital. For Haw-
kins’ part, if she is not totally
comfortable with the way
the pregnancy is progress-
ing, she urges the mother to
go to the hospital and seek a
physician’s care.
Such concerns, she said,
might come up prenatally or
during labor.
“When I have (a mom)
transferred, I was glad we
did,” she said. “There are
some babies who shouldn’t
be born at home, who might
need a (hospital) team,” she
said. “It’s rare — not even
once a year that I have to
do that — but I’m always
grateful to do it; I’m grate-
ful for the team at Wallowa
Memorial, for sure. They
have been great.”
The decision to transfer
from a home birth to a hos-
pital can be made by both
Hawkins and the mother.
“As long as it stays low-
risk, we go to their home,”
she said. “I’m monitor-
ing the mom; I’m monitor-
ing the baby. If I start to
see any red fl ags or yellow
fl ags, I call to say, ‘Hey, we
might want to transfer, I’m
coming (to the hospital).
If I do decide to say ‘I’m
coming,’ then something’s
changed, maybe concerning
fetal heart tones, or maybe
mom decides she wants
an epidural (an anesthe-
sia commonly given during
childbirth) — it could
be something that’s very
nonemergent.”
Postpartum care
Hawkins said one way
her midwifery practice dif-
fers from a general practi-
tioner is in the postpartum
care.
“After the (home) birth,
we stay, we clean up, we
make
sure
everyone’s
breastfeeding and stable and
not bleeding and the baby’s
transitioned well,” she said.
“Then I come back the next
day and at three days and
after a week and two weeks
and four weeks and six
weeks. … I’m seeing moms
a lot more in postpartum, but
it is the norm in midwifery
care in this international
model.”
In addition to midwifery
care, Hawkins also off ers
various services as a lac-
tation consultant, often to
clients who were not in
her midwifery care. These
include prenatal breastfeed-
ing classes, nutritional sup-
port and personalized care
plans to address common
and not so common breast-
feeding issues.
Overall, Hawkins is a
strong proponent of home
delivery for normal births.
“If someone becomes
high risk and they don’t
have a normal, routine, low-
risk pregnancy, I would refer
them to a hospital and a doc-
tor,” she said. “If they don’t
develop any kind of high
risks or complications, then
they stay with me, I deliver
their babies at home.”
Police seek tips in poaching case
Chieftain staff
WALLOWA COUNTY
— A 3x3 whitetail buck deer
was poached along School
Flat Road near School
Flat Lane within the Sled
Springs Wildlife Manage-
ment Unit sometime prior to
8 a.m. Sept. 25, according to
a press release from the Ore-
gon State Police.
A local resident notifi ed
OSP and wildlife troopers of
the poaching.
The buck was shot with
a large-caliber fi rearm on
private property, approxi-
mately 30 yards from the
road, and the entire deer was
left to waste.
Any person with infor-
mation related to this inci-
dent is encouraged to call the
OSP TIP (Turn In Poachers)
reward line at 1-800-452-
7888, by cell at *OSP (*677)
or send an email tip to TIP@
osp.oregon.gov. Reference
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Oregon State Police/Contributed Photo
A 3x3 whitetail buck was poached Sept. 25, 2021, along
School Flat Road in northern Wallowa County. The Oregon
State Police is requesting the help of anyone with information
in fi nding the culprit.
case No. SP21274921.
The Oregon Hunters
Association TIP reward
off ers preference points or
cash rewards for informa-
tion leading to an arrest or
issuance of a citation for the
unlawful taking, possession
or waste of bighorn sheep,
Rocky Mountain goat,
moose, elk, deer, antelope,
bear, cougar, wolf, upland
birds, waterfowl, furbear-
ers, game fi sh and shellfi sh.