Brooke Ray, Certified Nurse Midwife



Brooke is a Certified Nurse-Midwife dedicated to helping San Diego families birth at home. She is certified by the American College of Nurse Midwives, and she is an experienced and knowledgeable midwife with a well-rounded background of practice in different settings. She has attended over 1000 births at the UCSD Medical Center, the Best Start Birth Center and at home. But she finds homebirth the most soul-satisfying. Midwife means “with woman” and of all settings homebirth most allows her to be “with women.”

She believes homebirth is a superior option for healthy mothers, babies and their families. Birth is one of a few defining moments in a lifetime, a rite of passage. Such an event should be sanctified, not institutionalized. In the absence of unnecessary medical interventions and insensitive hospital routines, birth at home is gentler and more sane for all.

How we are born is important. Depending on the circumstances, birth can be transformative or demoralizing. A calm and peaceful gestation and birth experience lays a foundation for a peaceful temperament. A gentle birth promotes bonding and sensitivity to others which has life-long consequences for the individuals involved, as well as for society. As a midwife, her goal is to support gentle and sane birth for the benefit of the newborn, the mother, the family and society as a whole.

She first felt her calling to midwifery during the births of her own three children. Her first baby was born in the hospital in 1985, and the second and third were born at home with midwives. She was deeply moved by each birth experience and inspired to become a homebirth midwife.

She became an apprentice with the Santa Barbara Midwives. Her passion for homebirth grew with each birth she attended. She was certified as a Doula by ALACE (Association of Labor Assistants and Childbirth Educators) and accompanied women giving birth at home and in the hospital. She became a Registered Nurse and later completed midwifery school at the University of California, San Francisco.

To solidify her education, she worked for six years as a Nurse-Midwife at the UCSD Birth Center. She attended hundreds of births in the Birth Center and on the Labor and Delivery Unit. She has worked per diem at the Best Start Birth Center since 2003. Clinical experience is the foundation of safety on which she has built her midwifery practice.

In September 2005, she returned to her homebirth midwifery roots and original inspiration. It is her privilege and honor to midwife mothers, babies and families giving birth at home in San Diego.