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Holly Graff, CPM, LM
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However I was already pursuing other passions. I earned my Master of Arts in Teaching from Montclair State University where I focused in urban education. I taught science in an underserved public high school before leaving the world of public education in order to homeschool my own highly sensitive child, and for several years I developed and taught my own inquiry-based, hands-on science program for the homeschoolers in our community.
My daughter was born at home in 2013, and that gave me the final push to become a midwife. In the 12 years since my son's birth, the Elizabeth Seton Center had been forced to close due to soaring malpractice insurance costs, the c-section rate at our local hospital had reached 49%, and I'd heard more stories than I could count from birthing people whose choices had been stripped away by a cascade of unnecessary interventions. New Jersey had the second highest c-section rate in the nation, one of the highest maternal mortality rates and some of the worst racial disparities in maternal and newborn outcomes. And yet many people returned to hospital birth because they felt they had no other choice. New Jersey families needed more options.
In 2015 I became a DONA certified birth doula, and in 2021 I earned my Bachelor of Science in Midwifery from Midwives College of Utah. I apprenticed under Kasey DiVine in New Jersey for four years before temporarily relocating my family to Vermont and completing my clinical training with Katherine Bramhall at Gentle Landing Birth Center in Hanover, New Hampshire. I returned to New Jersey and became a NJ Licensed Midwife in 2021. I founded Collective Midwifery Care LLC together with Kasey in 2022, and I am currently offering an array of additional services under my new practice, Evolution Birth Services LLC including lactation counseling, Evidence Based Birth® Childbirth Classes, fertility counseling and at-home IUI, and monitrice/doula services. Visit my website for more information.
My daughter was born at home in 2013, and that gave me the final push to become a midwife. In the 12 years since my son's birth, the Elizabeth Seton Center had been forced to close due to soaring malpractice insurance costs, the c-section rate at our local hospital had reached 49%, and I'd heard more stories than I could count from birthing people whose choices had been stripped away by a cascade of unnecessary interventions. New Jersey had the second highest c-section rate in the nation, one of the highest maternal mortality rates and some of the worst racial disparities in maternal and newborn outcomes. And yet many people returned to hospital birth because they felt they had no other choice. New Jersey families needed more options.
In 2015 I became a DONA certified birth doula, and in 2021 I earned my Bachelor of Science in Midwifery from Midwives College of Utah. I apprenticed under Kasey DiVine in New Jersey for four years before temporarily relocating my family to Vermont and completing my clinical training with Katherine Bramhall at Gentle Landing Birth Center in Hanover, New Hampshire. I returned to New Jersey and became a NJ Licensed Midwife in 2021. I founded Collective Midwifery Care LLC together with Kasey in 2022, and I am currently offering an array of additional services under my new practice, Evolution Birth Services LLC including lactation counseling, Evidence Based Birth® Childbirth Classes, fertility counseling and at-home IUI, and monitrice/doula services. Visit my website for more information.