Jill Duggar Joins A Team Of Midwives, Including One Who Lost Her License

Jill Duggar has returned to the midwifery were she received her hands-on training years ago. Jill recently posed for a photo with a baby that was delivered by the team at AMB Midwifery in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The business is owned by a midwife Jill once apprenticed for and who found herself embroiled in a home birth scandal that resulted in the loss of her license to practice lay midwifery.

On Tuesday, The Duggar Family News: Life Is Not All Pickles and Hairspray Facebook page shared a post about Jill Duggar’s reunion with her former teacher and mentor, midwife Venessa Girons. According to the Duggar Family Blog, Jill trained with Venessa when she was working to become a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM).

“Jill seems to be back working for Venessa at the midwifery. I guess somebody needs to make a living in her family,” read the Duggar Family News Facebook post. “Derick says he works but won’t explain what his job is.”

It’s unclear if Jill Duggar really is currently employed by AMB Midwifery. A Facebook post on the business’s website does describe her as a member of a “birth team” that recently helped deliver a baby boy, but it’s possible that she was simply asked to assist with a birth while she was visiting her former teacher in Tulsa.

https://www.facebook.com/155580851151697/photos/a.560694633973648.1073741824.155580851151697/1724564890919944/?type=3&theater

Venessa Girons used to practice midwifery in Jill Duggar’s home state of Arkansas. However, according to SheKnows, her license was revoked by the state a few years ago due to a botched home birth involving a baby born with cerebral palsy. The mother of the child claimed that Girons’ failure to take the appropriate actions almost killed her baby. She also revealed that Duggar was apprenticing with Girons at the time, and she claimed that she pleaded with the former Counting On star to call 9-1-1 when things started going wrong. However, instead of listening to the mother, Duggar followed her mentor’s orders not to call for help. As reported by CafeMom, Girons has disputed these allegations.

According to the Midwives Alliance of North America, lay midwifery is currently unregulated in Oklahoma. This explains why Girons can no longer practice in Arkansas without a license but can in Oklahoma.

Jill Duggar obtained her CPM license in 2015, but she has never worked full-time as a lay midwife. On the Dillard Family website, she explains that her midwifery training was simply something she pursued during her “single years” so that she could learn skills that would be useful to her as a future missionary’s wife. Jill also says that she doesn’t plan on pursuing a career as a midwife as long as she is busy raising children.

“Although I don’t plan on practicing while I have little ones of my own at home, I know the skills I have already learned have benefitted me immensely and I may be able to use them in other ways, such as teaching, down the road,” she writes.