Meet Gaylea McDougal of Roots Collaborative Care

Today we’d like to introduce you to Gaylea McDougal

Hi Gaylea, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My journey really started with the birth of my first child. I was young, did not know my options and ended up buying everything the hospital had to sell me: the induction, the epidural, the episiotomy and all the cascade of interventions that go along with that type of delivery. All interventions that most young, healthy, low-risk people do not need. I was fortunate that I did not end up with any complications and did not need a surgical delivery, but I remember feeling like a very passive participant in that birth. This is what really got me asking questions. Two years later I had a home birth with my second child. That experience completely changed my perspective regarding birth, women’s health, and the way informed decision making is offered and exercised in the typical mainstream maternity care system. That shift of perspective is what inspired my passion to enter into nursing and shortly after, I began graduate studies at Vanderbilt University, while enrolled in their Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner Program. Through this program I gained a lot of very valuable didactic and clinical experience in a wide variety of conventional/mainstream settings.

However, my journey into birth work truly solidified after my 3rd delivery (second Homebirth), in 2007, when I transitioned away from those conventional clinical roles to supporting families as a doula and birth assistant. That same year, I authored the Alpha Childbirth curriculum, which later evolved into the wildly popular, Roots Childbirth curriculum, which has prepared over 2000 families on their birth journeys to date.

In 2016, following five years of intensive didactic, clinical, and a traditional apprenticeship training, I met the rigorous requirements set by the North American Registry of Midwives (NARM) to become a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) and obtained full licensure in Tennessee (and a few years later in Kentucky). Over the course of my career, I have attended almost 1,000 births in a variety of settings, including every major hospital in Middle Tennessee, home births and birth centers. My experience includes water births, multiples, VBACs, breech presentations, medicated and non-medicated births. What still motivates me the most is providing pregnant people and families with access to informed-decision-making opportunities and helping them exercise their right to informed consent and refusal without coercion, intimidation or fear.

In 2017, I founded Roots Collaborative Care, an integrative healthcare facility that provides an inclusive, trauma-informed approach to client and family wellness. While managing the day-to-day operations at Roots, I continue to attend home births, teach the Roots Childbirth curriculum, serve as the Middle TN representative for the Tennessee Midwives Association and mentor aspiring midwives as a NARM preceptor. Additionally, I moderate Preg Your Pardon, a pregnancy-focused podcast available on all streaming platforms.

Beyond my professional work, I have been married to my high school sweetheart, Scott, for 30 years, and we are parents to three sons: Austin, Bailey, and Casey. In January 2021, we experienced the profound loss of our eldest son, Austin, who died very unexpectedly from a massive stroke. We held him in our arms as he left this world. I feel truly humbled to have witnessed his first and last breath and I’m grateful to him every single day for teaching me how to simultaneously hold life, loss and love.

Austins death deepened our family’s commitment to supporting both the collective grief and healing of our community. In his honor, we started The ARM Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to providing a safe space for those navigating grief. I sit as the President of that organization.

Outside of midwifery, I find joy in long-distance running, organic gardening, mindfulness practices—including daily meditation and yoga—and helping my husband tend to our chickens and bees. I strive to make a compassionate impact while leaving the smallest possible footprint on our planet.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
So many obstacles and speed bumps! First of all, the process of becoming a midwife is extremely challenging. The CPM credential (Certified Professional Midwife) is the only credential that requires specialized training in managing deliveries outside of a hospital. It requires thousands of hours of prenatal care, deliveries, post-partum and newborn care in addition to hands on practice in emergency scenarios like shoulder dystocias, hemorrhaging, neonatal resuscitation, shock, managing infection, performing perineal repairs and many others. In order to get this level of experience it requires a very high level of commitment to an apprenticeship that usually involves years of being on call 24/7 with no financial reimbursement and missing a lot of family/personal time. It’s a very exhausting process that can put a huge burden on families and personal lives. On the plus side though, this level of educational experience TRULY prepared me to step into such an important role.

We’ve been impressed with Roots Collaborative Care, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Roots Collaborative Care is an integrative healthcare facility that provides an inclusive, trauma-informed approach to client and family wellness. We are a team of midwives, nurse practitioners, mental health therapists, physical therapists, lactation specialists, Doula and childbirth educators. We offer prenatal care, homebirth, post-partum, newborn and mental health care. We utilize an interdisciplinary approach and provide unique, client focused care. Within my particular part of the practice, we offer comprehensive prenatal care, delivery and post-partum care for families choosing to deliver outside of a hospital. It’s a great option for someone who wants the safety and skill-set of a birth center but the comfort of their own home. We bring the birth center to you!

As much as I love seeing families grow in this very intimate way though, the thing that I’m most proud of and what I hope that I’m known for, is not necessarily the homebirth part of what I do, but the informed decision making part. That’s always the sword I’ll die on and the most important part of what I do. I believe that offering people and families true and honest informed decision making opportunities is the very foundation of a safe and healthy practice model. It’s also every persons right as a human being.

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
Certified Professional Midwives have been fully licensed, independent, autonomous (I.e. don’t require MD supervision) for 25 years in TN. Unfortunately, we still have to work very hard to educate the community, hospitals, facilities, and other members of the maternity care system about our credential, our scope, our skill-set and the services that we provide. I hope that in the next decade we can have a bigger seat at the maternity table and be integrated more functionally into the system which will help streamline care, transfers and the overall health and safety of the birthing people in our community. Midwives are not the ones holding up the line in that regard and we are ready and willing to have those conversations and offer our experiences anytime.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Www.RootsCollaborativeCare.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rootscollaborativecare
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RootsCollaborativeCare