
This Minneapolis nurse midwife deliver babies, provides women’s health care
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Diverging Reports Breakdown
Delivering babies is usual for this Minneapolis nurse midwife, but it’s far from her whole job
Andrea Engdahl graduated from midwifery school 18 years ago. She sees patients at M Health Fairview Clinic-Riverside and delivers babies at Masonic Children’s Hospital. A nurse midwife is a registered nurse who delivers babies and cares for women from puberty through menopause. “We are not surgeons, first of all, and we are specialists in low-risk pregnancy,” she says.
“I want to be a midwife.”
She was pregnant with her first child at the time and exploring her health care options. A nurse midwife, she discovered, was a registered nurse who delivers babies and cares for women from puberty through menopause.
Eighteen years later — after leaving her early childhood family education job, raising her kids and eventually earning a nursing degree to work as an RN, including in obstetrics — Engdahl graduated from midwifery school.
Now 49, Engdahl sees patients at M Health Fairview Clinic-Riverside and delivers babies at Masonic Children’s Hospital.
In an interview edited for clarity and length, Engdahl shares what it’s like to be in her shoes.
What does a nurse midwife do as compared to an OB-GYN?
We are not surgeons, first of all, and we are specialists in low-risk pregnancy. But in addition to pregnancy, we do full, well-woman care similar to what a women’s health nurse practitioner would do. We care for women from puberty through menopause, which I think is surprising to a lot of folks. They think that they can come and have their babies with us, and then they’re like, “OK, well, I’m never going to see you again, because I’m not having babies.” And we’re like, “No, no, please come back! We can take care of you.”
Andrea Engdahl charts on her lunch break at the clinic. (Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
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