Full Circle Women’s Health

The positives:
I've been to their Maternity / Mommy and Baby yoga classes and have enjoyed them.

The negatives:
The organization is a business first and foremost, a women's center last. Worse - the service they offer is complete pseudoscience.

Showed up with my newborn for a consultation with a lactation consultant. After waiting 15 minutes while they tried to sell something to the woman ahead of me in line, they made me fill out multiple forms for insurance, give them my credit card number, and sign document after document guaranteeing I would pay them, you name it. Then, was made to wait 45 minutes for my appointment. Making moms with newborns wait 45 minutes for a scheduled appointment? This place is not a "mommy and baby friendly" organization, it's a business first, a fancy building second (the waiting room is stunning), and mommy and baby are an irrelevant afterthought.

I've never been treated that way by any medical establishment - my *hospital* was more accommodating to me and my baby. This place - you wait while they answer the phones, try to sell people their services, and take care of any and every business possible before giving their attention to you. Also - many doctors offices and even the hospital has been accommodating if I didn't have my insurance card etc. This place - you guarantee payment up front or forget about being seen. I can see what they care about most, and it's not their clients.

I could have tolerated this, however, if it were not for the actual service I received from the lactation consultant.

I had seen several lactation consultants at the hospital and they had been incredibly helpful, even my pediatrician was incredibly helpful. My baby had a dairy / soy allergy. My pediatrician reassured me over and over again, she would grow out of the allergy by 6 months - to pump and freeze my breastmilk.

The lactation consultant at Full Circle, however, told me she believed babies never grew out of allergies, terrified me that my baby was probably allergic to everything (wheat, beef, nuts, eggs, etc). And realizing I could not follow that restricted a diet until she was weaned, I gave up nursing and pumping.

Well - surprise - by 6 months, my baby was drinking my freezer stash of breastmilk and even went back on regular similac, but by then my supply had dried up, and my baby was no longer interested in nursing.

How ironic that the person who killed my breastfeeding relationship was a "mommy-friendly" lactation consultant. But, there's a reason doctors and nurses go through years of medical training - they know what they are talking about. And I wish I had listened to them rather than being burned by people who market themselves as being all about the natural mommy and baby relationship. There is nothing mommy friendly about their money first helpful medical advice never approach. It's sham - don't buy it.

PS: I did prenatal Yoga (still practice), I nursed until the daily allergy, had a natural birth, am all about natural parenting - but this place is simply incompetent. Everything you hate about traditional medical practices (all they care about is $$) this place is exponentially worse.

Absolutely, positively amazing. I have now had my 2 boys with this practice and I can clearly see the difference between these midwives and my default OBGYN practice. I was able to have 2 natural births with Michelle and I could not be happier. I felt completely confident with the midwives and they not only answered all my questions but sat with me each appointment and spent quality time with me. When this is your first pregnancy, you don't really know what to ask since its a new experience. They helped me through everything and made my pregnancy and deliveries extremely calm. If you are at all a skeptic, just make an appt to go talk to them. You will immediately see and feel the difference.

My wife and I had nothing but the best experience with Full Circle. Coming from a traditional OB/GYN, we were relieved to find a practice that had an open ear to our concerns and the time to talk with us. We have a more natural approach to health which resonated well with the midwives - at the time that consisted of Robin, Kathy, and Michelle. They worked with us to ensure our medical coverage would participate their services.
Even though we came in a little later in our pregnancy (as mentioned we started with a OB/GYN), we had the chance to have individual appointments with all of the midwifes - each midwife was nicer than the next.
My wife and I took advantage of their lactation classes, prenatal yoga, and supplement store.
Michelle ended up being the midwife on call when we went into labor. She was calm and supportive even though contractions started getting serious at 4 in the morning. Michelle met us at the hospital and walked us through the delivery. She even offered for me to "catch" my first child.
Our son was born without the use of pain killers, epidurals, or inducing labor. My wife experienced almost no tearing and was on her feet the same day. After the birth, my wife took advantage of mommy and me yoga and the lactation counseling. We'd highly recommend both to those that were interested.
We owe many thanks to Full Circle, the marvelous midwifes, and the supportive atmosphere they've created.

My experience with this practice was extremely unpleasant to put it nicely. I could equate it to a chocolate covered rotting fruit; the outside is seemingly nice and sweet then unbearably disgusting.
Office Visits:
The information exchange and overall communication fell short as if the knowledge was not there. I had very specific questions looking for an equally detailed answers. To which I was replied with a runaround of verbal garbage 10 min non-answer ending on an unrelated ioda of my question.
Birth and Delivery:
The process was appalling uninviting, especially from being on the educated and involved father/husband side. It was as if there was already a plan that the midwife Robin had which we had to fit into. Pros and cons were never plainly laid out on the table even when clearly asked. When it didn't fit into her plan she would be unprofessional, cold, and downright childish making faces and sarcastic remarks to our situation or questions. There was a time we were provided with 3 options of which were hers and not medically necessary and the one we wanted to choose she said "Or you can tell me F**k you".
When my wife was in intense contractions for some time I suggested we move so that she could be in a more conducive painless position for laboring than her back,or just to provide an alternative. She replied snidely with a condescend tone, "What position would that be?" without even looking at me. To prevent an argument I kept my cool , an extreme disservice to my wife, but I had to be in the moment for her. I hope these small examples paint the picture as there were a ton of others that would make an already long review novel length.

Long story short, the midwife made what is nature's most amazing gift ending exponentially more stressful instead of an enamoured time. I regret not calling it quits with the practice sooner, and only continued out of complacency and trying to surround the overall pregnancy with positivity. Not worth it, look elsewhere.
If I knew other midwifes in the area I would recommend any other. Do some research first is my recommendation.

On a side note the other midwife in the practice Michelle was attentive and a pleasure I do not think it was worth the gamble of who's on call unfortunately. We also later found she was referred to as a Med-wife(medical) not midwife in the community.

RUN!!! This organization is horrible. The midwives are completely incompetent. They maintain a facade of being more caring than traditional OBs and hospital protocol, but they are not. I was being scared into a C-section at 38 weeks. We left the practice and after getting all my medical records reviewed and physically examined by 3 others (an OB, an RN, and a midwife), all concluded induction and C-section was completely unnecessary. Then we went to their home birth practice hoping the finances and medical records under the same roof would make for a smooth transition. After signing all the paperwork (and they increased the fee on us after we signed), buying all the supplies, following every instruction and meeting every request, being led to believe we were moving forward, their home birth midwife bailed out on us THE NIGHT BEFORE MY DUE DATE.

Fortunately, we found a new midwife in NJ with a doctorate and 37+ years of experience. She, along with another OB and another home birth midwife from NYC, confirmed that I have no complications to be concerned about. In fact, an OB - chosen by this practice at FC - told us the home birth midwife is "paranoid" and "neurotic."

This is not holistic care. All of the services offered there are completely separate businesses that only use "Full Circle" for billing purposes. The practitioners do not work together or support each other. One of the two main midwives doesn't even know how to use their own ultrasound equipment. The other one constantly referred to my baby as a "brat." They don't follow up and are overbooked taking on too many clients to call you, though they seem to have no problem contacting you for payment (if you have out-of-network coverage, you have to pay their fees upfront whereas other practitioners deal directly with your insurance and do not charge you thousands of dollars.) And no problem contacting me to get the birthing tub we rented returned to them for another client right after dropping us while I'm in early labor. When we tried reaching them to get reimbursed for their last minute cancellation, we were told the owner was on vacation for a week as we are scrambling trying to find a new practitioner. After thousands of dollars lost, so much time and energy spent arranging for our home birth, purchasing and renting their supplies, and more phone calls, demands, and a tremendous amount of upset, they finally called back but the owner still needs to think about our reimbursement.

In the meantime, while I'm in early labor without any resolution regarding our money they have all tied up, they continue contacting me asking for their birthing tub back for another client and asking for my husband's contact information, which they've had from the very beginning. Full Circle Family Care? Women's Health? They seem to care very little about the well being of a pregnant woman and her family than they do about making as much money as possible at the risk of her physical and emotional health. Since our experience with them, I've discovered that I am not the only one who is amazed and concerned that they are still in business. Word around town will eventually catch up with them if it hasn't already. Don't be fooled by how nice they seem. Nice doesn't replace competence especially when you and your baby's health and lives are at stake.