Sarah Tunney

Midwife

Sarah Tunney is a licensed midwife, a former historian, a clinical researcher and a mother. She has been involved in maternal, infant and reproductive health advocacy for nearly 30 years.

Sarah has attended over 500 births, first as a doula, then as a midwifery student, apprentice, and later as a community midwife servicing the Amish. Sarah moved to Strasburg, PA, in 2022 to learn advanced skills from a veteran midwife who specializes in breech and twin births. The Amish families of this community experience high rates of rare genetic anomalies, metabolic disorders and congenital heart defects. However, the community does not engage with pediatricians unless conditions are life-threatening. Instead they rely on their community midwives' skills to safely birth at home and to provide all newborn care and evaluations necessary. As a result, their midwives are extremely practiced in home birth and thorough newborn assessments, which identify babies requiring specialty care who would otherwise go untreated.

Prior to her time with the Amish, Sarah was an apprentice to a traditional midwife (partera), in Tijuana, Mexico, assisting her as she established a free clinic and birth center for pregnant migrants and asylum seekers. While there Sarah joined the board of Refugee Health Alliance, a nonprofit organization providing financial and logistical support to the clinic and birth center, and was a Medical Parole (MPP) coordinator for families seeking asylum.

Sarah has worked or done primary maternal and infant health research in Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, Mexico and Guatemala, and has also spent time in the UK and Iceland learning from other midwives about their practices. She is currently a member of the Quality Maternal & Newborn Collaborative Research Alliance affiliated with Yale University, a group of providers from all sectors of maternal and newborn healthcare working to improve care, experiences and outcomes for families through better and more collaborative research efforts. She is also an active member of the California Association of Licensed Midwives (CALM).

Sarah received her Bachelor of Arts from Yale University in Near Eastern Languages & Literatures, Arabic Language & Literature, and her MA/PhD (ABD) in Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies from New York University. She was an historian and taught Middle East and Islamic studies until 2010. Her primary fields of research interest were social and intellectual histories of childhood, birth, maternal/infant health, gender and sexuality, and the body. During that time she remained active within the field of reproductive and maternal and infant health, and eventually chose to leave academia to pursue her calling as a midwife. She completed her midwifery education at National Midwifery Institute based in Vermont.

Sarah is committed to ensuring equal access for all to safe, physiologic birth, quality maternal and newborn care and reproductive health resources, and to collaborative models of care within birth systems.

Episodes for this expert

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  Why Experience Matters When Choosing Your Birth Team

  You know you want to birth with a midwifery team however you aren’t sure how to choose the one right for you.

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  Why Experience Matters When Choosing Your Birth Team

  You know you want to birth with a midwifery team however you aren’t sure how to choose the one right for you. Today we are speaking with Sarah Tunney a very experienced midwife to chat about why experience matters especially for high risk pregnancies and deliveries.

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