Ellen McAndrew part of new midwifery team at Twin River Health Center
Experienced certified nurse-midwife Ellen McAndrew has joined Gifford Ob/Gyn and Midwifery in Randolph and the Twin River Health Center in White River Junction.
A certified nurse-midwife since 1988, McAndrew has also worked as a registered nurse and a nurse practitioner caring for women.
McAndrew earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing to become a registered nurse from Fitchburg State College in Massachusetts, her master’s degree in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and her nurse midwifery degree from the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing in Hyden, Ky.
She is board certified by the American Midwifery Certification Board and most recently worked at Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital in Lebanon, N.H.
She joins Gifford and its White River Junction practice because she is personally familiar with the medical center’s strong administrative support of midwifery services. She worked as a childbirth educator with Drs. Ronald Gadway and Edward Armstrong at what is now Gifford’s Bethel Health Center. She was in inpatient nursing administration and education at Gifford. She oversaw the hospital’s Birthing Center from 1983-1987, and was both a previously employed and private practice certified nurse-midwife with privileges at Gifford from 1988-1998.
It was indeed McAndrew’s role as head of Gifford’s Birthing Center that prompted her to want to become a midwife. “I didn’t get the idea to be a certified nurse midwife until then,” she says. “I wanted more time with my patients to be influencing them to make better health decisions.”
Since becoming a midwife 24 years ago, she has delivered more than 1,800 babies and has a lifetime cesarean section rate of just 8 percent. “I have even delivered babies of babies I delivered,” says McAndrew, who believes that birth is a natural experience and an experience that involves the whole family.
McAndrew aims to support what she calls “developing families.” “I love the wonder of birth and the excitement that comes with creating a new family,” she says.
She’s also a proponent of breastfeeding and provides significant bedside support during labor. In addition to childbirth services and care for child bearing families, McAndrew provides well-woman gynecology care, diabetes education, weight loss assistance and more.
McAndrew lives with her husband, Chris, in Chelsea. They have two children, a son in high school and a daughter in college. She enjoys growing much of her own food through gardening as well as swimming, hiking and playing golf at Montague Golf Club in Randolph.
McAndrew is part of a large team of midwives providing 24-hour-a-day care at the renowned Gifford Birthing Center. For women living south of Gifford, the addition of McAndrew at Twin River means more convenient pre-natal and post-natal care. Joining McAndrew in practice at Twin River is Gifford certified nurse-midwife Meghan Sperry.
Call McAndrew at the Twin River Health Center at (802) 296-7370 or at Gifford Ob/Gyn and Midwifery at (802) 728-2401.
