“If nobody talks, what’s going to happen?” said Sharon Zimmerman, a 25-year-old mother of two and a cousin of Kathleen Zimmerman .

Ms. Catlin was born in Penn Yan and home-schooled her 14 children here. For the past 25 years, she said, she has helped women with prenatal care and delivery . Her career sprang from her own experience: She moved to home births after having her first four children in a hospital.

“I just love the women I work with, and I love to teach them how to birth well,” Ms. Catlin said. “I’m just a friend to them. They feel free to ask me any questions about marriage. Being a birth attendant is just a natural progression of all of that.”

In recent years, Ms. Catlin said she has been present at about 70 of the approximately 200 Mennonite births each year . A midwife who was licensed by the state delivered many of the other babies in the community until she died in February.

“The care that she gave was like a mother,” Kaylene Hoover, 25, said. “She knew exactly how you felt.”

The circumstances that led to Ms. Catlin’s first arrest also particularly alarmed the women. According to court documents, staff members at F.F. Thompson Hospital in Canandaigua, N.Y., reported Ms. Catlin to the authorities after she brought a woman to the hospital . Officials said the woman gave birth there, but the baby, who had sepsis, later died.

Ms. Catlin’s lawyer, David Morabito, said she was not involved in the delivery.

“She does not take unnecessary risks,” said Ms. Rissler, who hired Ms. Catlin to help deliver two of her three children. “She goes to the hospital when it’s necessary. But if it’s a routine birth, there’s really no reason to go.”