OB Recommendations - Arlington,MA

I see you are in Arlington, I am too! I go to Mt. Auburn Practice for Women in Watertown, on Mt. Auburn St. I don't know what part of Arlington you live in, but I'm in the Heights on the Belmont/Lexington side and it only takes me 10 min. to get to the OB office, maybe 15 with traffic. I see Dr. Leslie MacDonald, who is WONDERFUL, as is the other OB in the office and the full-time nurse practitioner. They are obviously affiliated with Mt. Auburn Hospital, which does tend to be a little on the "crunchy" side, but never pushes anything on moms and dads in terms of birthing, breastfeeding, etc. I had two high risk pregnancies and I felt so cared for and healthy with both, and things went great with great outcomes! Their number is ###-###-####. Good luck!!

Congrats K.!
I too am I guess what you could call 'crunchy' and wanted very little interference w/ the birth of our first child last October. I went to Dr. Mary Boyd out of Beverly Hospital...both her and all the midwives were terrific and totally stood by my birth plan. There is also the Birthing Center at Beverly Hospital that gives you more of an 'at home' experience w/ little intervention...but in the event that medical attention is needed you're still on the hospital grounds and can be taken into the hospitals maternity ward

http://www.beverlyhospital.org/services/centers/north-sho...

My husband and I also attended Hypnobirthing classes to help prepare for a calm and natural birth, it was terrific!!!

http://www.calmhypnobirth.com/

Best of luck through your pregnancy and take the time to really enjoy being pregnant...it's such an amazing process your body goes through.

I adore Todd Shapiro in Brookline. He's affiliated with Beth Israel. I have found him to be incredibly supportive and kind (he's been my GYN for 10 years and my OB for both pregnancies). I know he does a lot of work with high risk pregnancies (I'm not sure if you are). I'm not particularly "crunchy," but I can't imagine him not being supportive of any well educated choice by a mom. The downsides of his practice is that he's in pretty much private practice, so you might not know the OB who delivers the baby. Also, he's not particularly punctual for appointments. Still, he always returns phone calls and thoughtfully answers any of my questions. (After all of this, I hope he's taking new patients!) Good luck with your search.

I used Harvard Vanguard at the Kenmore office .I chose to use the midwives who were all wonderful. My OB was Dr. Dowling and she was great as well. I can't speak enough about how supportive they were to my vision of how I wanted my birth to go. My first child ended up coming early and breech so I had to have an emergency C-section. Then for my second they were very supportive of me going for a VBAC. During labor with my 2nd I was having abnormally heavy bleeding. They handled it wonderfully. There was a nurse holding a monitor up to my stomach the whole time so I was free to move and do what I needed to while still being able to monitor the status of my baby. In the end I was able to have my all natural birth :)

I believe all the Harvard Vanguard offices are supportive of birth choices. I would also look into Newton Wellesley Hospital. I was there both times and they were also wonderful about supporting birth decisions.

Congrats and good luck!