Welcome Home Midwifery Services, Inc.

Welcome Home Doula Services, Inc. was founded in 2010 by Madeleine Shernock as a doula business with a special interest in serving low-income families. Our fundamental philosophy is that pregnancy and birth are normal, healthy events in the life of a family. Birth is an opportunity for personal growth and the strengthening of relationships. It is a unique process that belongs to the pregnant client and their family. Over the next several years, Madeleine and a dedicated team of Mentor Doulas helped to build the Apprentice Doula Program, a larger community of doulas available to meet the diverse needs of families in the greater Sacramento area. Since the start of the Apprentice Doula Program in 2011, over 25 doulas have received training and experience through Welcome Home. In 2014, Welcome Home Doula Services, Inc. became recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

Welcome Home Midwifery Services was founded in 2016 as a sister organization to WHDS, facilitating affordable midwifery care and clinical midwifery training to the Sacramento region; making it our responsibility to provide excellence in a childbearing client's care and education, and sensitivity to their concerns and needs. We received our determination letter as a 501(c)(3) at the end of 2017.

Welcome Home Doula Services and Welcome Home Midwifery Services underwent a corporate merger (with Welcome Home Midwifery Services, Inc. as the remaining organization), combining resources and personnel to better serve the childbearing community of Sacramento. While the programs largely are unchanged, this merger better allows our staff and clientele to benefit from streamlined services, more structured case management, and collaboration with other providers and organizations.

In 2018, Welcome Home Midwifery Services opened a Licensed Midwife-Run Freestanding Birth Center in South Sacramento. In 2020, WHMS also opened a Licensed Midwife clinic and training facility beside the birth center.