Midwife Christy D'Aquila, CPM, CNM

Hi Y'all!

Simsbury, Connecticut
I am originally from the deep south, from Mississippi, where humidity, pine straw, y’all, and sweet tea are a part of life. I joyfully embrace those aspects of home. Christian-based authoritative parenting, corporal punishment, and deep-rooted, active racism and sexism are also a part of my southern story whose effects I actively strive to dismantle on a daily basis. I lived my pre-teen and teen years in the Greater Chicago area navigating coming-of-age amidst the freedom allowed by an urban area with amazing public transportation.

​After Hurricane Katrina, we moved to Connecticut. I currently live in Simsbury with my husband and 1-3 kids depending on what month it is! Besides my commitment to safeguarding physiologic birth and body-mind-spirit integrity in birth, I enjoy herb and flower gardening, crochet, process art, and walks with our dog, Max.

Puberty, childbirth, and becoming a parent were transition times when I reckoned with values to keep and reject as a person and a parent. Transitions in life offer opportunities for initiation into new roles. Rites of passage thrust us into disintegration, reckoning with values and core beliefs, and into new roles. Embracing the journey offers an opportunity to leave behind old rules and strategies, an opportunity to uncover, discover, and grow into new roles and ways of being with a focus on intentional thriving in connection with ourselves, our kids, and each other. In my middle years, I keep learning, growing, dismantling. And I’m happy to share this journey with you! 

​Personal growth and deeper knowing

​My interest in human development and individual psychology blends with my midwifery practice. I recognize birth and sexual and reproductive health as deeply personal experiences influenced by past and present life events. I celebrate joyful moments. And I am committed to courageously diving into the shadows of one’s life with compassionate curiosity, knowing that shining a light on these areas offers opportunities for reflection and healing. The nature of the midwife-client relationship and giving birth in a protected space offers opportunity for exploration. Life transitions such as puberty, childbirth, parenting and elder-care, perimenopause, and menopause offer ripe opportunities for personal and community reckoning and growth. In visits with you, I earnestly listen to your story and the meaning you give to your experiences. 
Home Birth Midwifery
My initial call to midwifery started while reading Robbie Davis-Floyd’s book Birth as an American Rite of Passage. I am thrilled to share my passion for the integrity of birth unfolding in its own time and space as a midwife. I walk beside you during the childbearing year, following your lead, creating a protected space infused with trust in you to navigate the challenges you meet, and foster a safe passage for you and your baby. Parenting is hard work, and you deserve wholistic support from the start.

There is no one type of person who desires midwifery services and home birth. I look forward to working with you as part of the diverse group of people who make up the homebirth community in the Greater Hartford area, Hartford, Litchfield, upper Fairfield, New Haven, and Middlesex Counties, and throughout Connecticut! I offer home visits for those families in and near Simsbury and my office is in Terryville/Plymouth, CT.
​View Christy's Curriculum Vitae

First, Do No Harm

The childbearing year is a time of growth and transition. Old roles are cast aside as you grow into the new roles which await you. Transformation is hard, rewarding work. I recognize the critical need to reclaim the spirituality of birth centered in the family and community.  And I rejoice with each baby born in the context of supportive midwifery care in the community or in an alternate setting when needed -- welcoming the re-learning of childbirth as a non-medical event.

​I also recognize no single, right way of coping, laboring, and birthing. 
A single vision of good laboring and childbirth is a falsehood that contributes to a self-blame culture and disappointment.
I ‘do harm’ when birthers embody the idea that they did not achieve their dream birth because they did not follow a specific childbirth method or failed to do something just right.
Good births include unwished for events and flexible plans that become the next best thing.​
Birthing is a rite of passage.
And as such, it requires your presence, and self-love, including persevering through challenges.

I am eager to join together as you walk this birthing journey!

Education and Training

My varied experience in nursing, midwifery, home, and hospital birth serve you well! I gained experience through a blend of self-learning, apprenticeship, and academic nursing, nurse-midwifery, and MEAC-accredited midwifery programs. 
  • support of physiologic childbirth
  • labor support and comfort measures
  • childbirth educator/mentor
  • prenatal and postpartum care
  • assisting pregnant people to remain healthy and candidates for home births
  • managing labor, birth, and newborn complications
  • newborn assessments and care to 28 days
  • yearly well-person exams (self-collect HPV option in lieu of speculum PAP exam COMING SOON!)
  • strong reliance on evidence and intuition
  • pharmacology
  • herbal and nutritional recommendations in the childbearing year
  • unhurried prenatal and postpartum appointments following your lead
  • trauma aware care 
  • respect for the pregnant person as the expert and primary caregiver for their baby
  • critically thinking and acting in times of emergency
  • proficiency with nursing skills 

A Note to Medical Community Colleagues

I am committed to further improving care for homebirth families by promoting the expansion of our cultural awareness practices to include those who choose home birth and midwifery care. Homebirth safety is improved by healthcare providers (nurses, physicians, midwives) respecting homebirth as part of social culture. We are ethically bound to extend our cultural awareness practices to homebirthing families and the midwives who support them when we encounter them in our offices, clinics, and in the hospital.  The U.S. healthcare systems may be stregthened by: open collaboration, consultation, and referral with the medical community including Radiology, MFM, ob/gyn, paramedics, and EMTs; easy access to emergency services when needed; ensuring access to the Midwives Model of Care as a standard for best practice at home, hospital, and birth centers; and easy access for those with low-risk pregnancies (most birthing people) to homebirth and midwifery-owned freestanding birth centers.