World-renowned midwife Shari Daniels, knows babies.  A midwife for the last three-and-a-half decades, she has helped bring more than 10,000 babies into our world.  As the Director and Chief Midwife at the Miami Maternity Center, and star of the hit Discovery Health Channel series, “House of Babies,” Shari has dedicated her career to offering women a natural choice when it comes to birthing their babies. 

Shari was born to be a midwife.  When people come to her Center, they are amazed at her extensive knowledge of midwifery and the excitement and pleasure she gets when coaching future mothers through natural, drug-free births.  As evidenced on “House of Babies,” Shari helps even the most cautious woman feel confident that, she too, can join the ranks of millions of women who give birth naturally.

Shari began learning about midwifery from watching her grandmother and mother birth babies in her hometown of Fabens, Texas.  Her grandmother was a nurse by trade but did home births to help bring in more income. Shari's mother delivered about 1,000 babies as a midwife.  Now Shari is the one carrying on her family's legacy.  And long before her successful television series, Shari was making history as the Director of the first-ever midwifery birth center in the United States.

Shari went on to help create other birth centers the world over, including Israel, Equador, Jamaica and India.  Eventually Shari settled in Florida where she founded the Miami Maternity Center and established the International School of Midwifery, an accredited 3-year midwifery program.  Shari has trained more than 500 midwives in her lengthy career.  She also found time to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in elementary education and a Master of Science degree in educational psychology from the University of Texas at El Paso.  Shari’s mix of traditional education and real-world midwifery experience has helped make her one of the most well-respected proponents of natural births in today’s society.  As such, Shari was the perfect subject to launch a new breed of reality birth shows on television.

In 2006, the Discovery Health Channel premiered a new factual show about natural childbirth, called “House of Babies,” shot at Shari’s Miami Maternity Clinic.  The 26-episode, fact-based series follows the stories of Shari, other midwives and midwifery students, and parents as they experience the day-to-day joy and drama of drug-free childbirth.  The footage of the births is raw and real; the pain and hard work of labor is evidenced.  But through it all is Shari, steadfast, confident and a beacon of hope for all the women who think they can’t bear the pain any longer or push one last time.

More than 35 births a month are done at the Miami Maternity Center.  Shari estimates she has trained roughly 500 midwives coast-to-coast.  She says the work they do at the Center is more important than ever because the rate of Cesarian Sections is nearing 50% of all births.  As an advocate for midwifery, Shari has dedicated her life to helping mothers plan natural births and has no plans to stop.

Just like the women whose babies Shari has helped birth, you too, will find Shari's exuberance, confidence, knowledge, and faith in the power of women to be extraordinary.  Says Shari, “"I think the very best moment of my job is when I hand a baby over to the mother, she looks at the baby, it cries, and I see the look on the mother's face and it looks like all her discomfort is gone.  And then she looks at me and says, 'It wasn't so bad.  I could do it again!'"”