MESA, AZ — Noelle and Dylan Zmrzel never got to bring home their baby boy after complications arose during her labor in November 2023 at Willow Midwife Center for Birth and Wellness in Mesa.
This week, the couple filed a lawsuit against the birth center alleging wrongful death due to negligence and medical malpractice.
“You don't want this to happen to anybody else,” Dylan Zmrzel told ABC15 in an interview last month. Noelle Zmrzel added, they “just want something to change.”
According to their lawsuit, Noelle was 42 weeks pregnant and no longer eligible for midwife services under state health rules. However, Willow's midwives continued to provide care “for an additional 20 hours before ultimately calling 911 six minutes after the baby boy's fetal heart tones allegedly drastically dropped,” the legal claim said.
“According to [the midwives], she was progressing fine,” the couple’s attorney, John Kelly, told ABC15. “In reality, she was not - she was not progressing, and she was going further and further into a dire situation.”
After an ambulance took Noelle to the hospital, the baby was stillborn.
Late last year, the couple also filed a complaint with the Arizona Department of Health Services, which licenses two non-nurse midwives who attended Noelle while she was in labor. Non-nurse midwives are also referred to as lay midwives or licensed professional midwives. State rules dictate different scopes of practice for nurses and non-nurse midwives.
Check the licensing history for all Arizona midwives in ABC15's database below:
NOTE: ABC15 is committed to providing up-to-date information about midwives. This dataset is current as of January 30, 2025. Please email investigators@abc15.com with questions or comments.
After an investigation, the Arizona Department of Health Services filed Notices of Intent to suspend the licenses of the two midwives.
For midwife Mana Muhajir, the department’s notice alleged six violations of state rules, including failure to provide an emergency plan, failure to complete some prenatal tests, and failure to check fetal heart tones and the mother's vital signs at required intervals.
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For midwife Nicole Amador, the department’s notice alleged one violation for being late in performing fetal heart tone checks.
An attorney for Willow Midwife Center for Birth and Wellness sent a letter to the state health department Wednesday disputing alleged midwife violations.
"While this outcome is devastating, it does not automatically mean that there were issues with the care received," the letter said.
Willow added an emergency plan was in place and the necessary tests were conducted. The birth center claimed the midwives did follow health department guidance and regulators are retroactively changing the rules on fetal heart monitoring, which puts them in “legal limbo.” The attorney who wrote the letter referred the state regulators to a recording of a technical assistance meeting in 2023 where the timing of fetal heart tone checks was discussed.
Both midwives face a one-year suspension, and hearings for both cases are scheduled for March.
You can reach ABC15 Senior Investigator Melissa Blasius by email at melissa.blasius@abc15.com or call 602-803-2506. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) @MelissaBlasius or Facebook.
