“I grew up as the fifth child in a family of fourteen, and have always been around babies and loved them. In 2010 I caught my niece at my sister’s home birth in Virginia, which led me down the path of becoming a birth doula and midwife. I have a bachelor’s degree in midwifery from the Midwives College of Utah and moved to Cincinnati with a passion to improve Ohio’s maternity care. I regularly volunteer teaching community childbirth education classes and for the Kentucky Home Birth Coalition, and am a founder of Ohio’s chapter of National Association of Certified Professional Midwives. Before moving to Ohio I lived in San Antonio Texas for two years and worked at Birth Center Stone Oak and with home birth midwives Robin Rabenschlag, Julie Hatfield, and Janet Dirmeyer. I earned my CPM certification in 2014, and have been practicing as a home birth midwife ever since. In 2017 I became certified as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. Most recently I’ve been involved with legislative efforts to increase access to midwives and serving on the Kentucky Midwives Advisory Council, creating regulations for licensure of CPMs. In August 2020 I became the first Certified Professional Midwife to become licensed in the state of Kentucky!“
Dr. Cindy Farley reviews selected legal cases involving midwifery regulatory issues and clinical care. She is co-editor of Clinical Practice Guidelines for Midwifery and Women’s Health, and of Prenatal and Postnatal Care: A Woman-Centered Approach. Dr. Farley has been instrumental in organizing groups of midwifery and WHNP students to visit their federal legislators and advocate for positive change in important maternal health policies and legislation. She received the 2020 American College of Nurse-Midwives Public Policy Award for this work. She was awarded a Faculty Residency in the Fall of 2019 at Oxford University in England, learning from British midwives and midwifery students and exploring their systems of care for childbearing families. She has contributed to global health efforts in Honduras, Guatemala, Haiti, and Liberia. Making midwives improve the health and well-being of all people is Dr. Farley’s passion. She is excited to support the Cincinnati Birth Center in offering the women, birthing people, and families in Cincinnati and surrounding areas a safe and satisfying birth experience with competent and compassionate midwifery care.
The common thread in all of her work is social justice. She lives an engaged and whole-hearted life, diving into worthy projects and seeing them through. She is drawn toward right-brained people, but she offers a left-brained skill set, utilizing her agile project management skills and editor's eye to maximize project impact. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband, two small children, dog, and chickens.