Joyce
Moxley Thomas, MHA, CPM
(CA Licensed Midwife)
Executive Director
Joyce is a wife and mother of 4 kids: Lynn (33), Liza (29), Jaye
(21) - her little 2 ½ lb. miracle!, and Jordan (10) his own miracle
after 22 weeks of bedrest & 6 wks premature!
Joyce’s love of caring for “mommies
& babies” started when she was a 15 year old “candy-striper”
at Research Medical Center in Kansas City, where she received
her nurses training. But she knew then she didn’t
want to be a nurse. At 22 Joyce, as a young US Navy wife,
started working with an Australian midwife and together they provided
homebirth services to US Navy wives in Connecticut. After moving
to San Diego, Joyce had a private homebirth practice, working
with Dr. Richard Butcher a well-known homebirth physician at the
time. Together they authored the California Midwifery Pilot
Project, HMPP #148 (1983), which would have trained & licensed
midwives in 3-year community college-based programs 10 years before
the midwives won licensing after decades of persecution &
prosecution in California. The present licensing law is
based in part on HMPP #148. Joyce and “Dr. B”
helped over 200 homebirth babies into the world in the San Diego
area 1978 – 1983. The C-section rate was less than
4%.
After earning a Masters
Degree in Healthcare Administration from the University of LaVerne
in 1987 and working in many aspects of healthcare administration,
Joyce returned to midwifery in 2004, earning the Certified Professional
Midwife (CPM) designation after graduating from the National College
of Midwifery, Taos, NM. It is one of the only degree-granting
programs approved by the California Medical Board, which licenses
midwives here. For details, please go to www.midwiferycollege.org
. Joyce
has worked in two birth centers: The Natural Birth &
Women's Center in Sherman Oaks, CA where she managed the labors
and caught most of the babies for over 40 couples; and she worked
for six weeks in the Casa de Naciemiento in El Paso, TX, where
she was the "first" on primary midwife on over 30 cases. She is
also a local homebirth midwife in the Inland Empire, CA.
