PushLinks

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/midwives-seek-state-license-for-home-births-798106.html

By Meredith Moss - An increasing number of women are opting to deliver babies at home, but the practice is unregulated in Ohio because the state doesn’t license home midwives. In May, under the banners of Ohio Families for Safe Birth and Ohio Midwives Alliance, 40 men, women and children from the Miami Valley joined with 300 others to rally at the Ohio State House and meet with legislators to push for a bill that would license and recognize Certified Professional Midwives. Twenty-six states now recognize that credential. ">“We’re trying to make sure a consumer has access to qualified midwives to help them in their home birth,” said Devon Horsman of Kettering, a certified professional midwife who serves as legislative chair for the Ohio Midwives Alliance. ...

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/06/midwives_hope_new_york_state_d.html

James T. Mulder (AP) - Licensed midwives in New York can deliver babies in hospitals, birth centers and homes without supervision by a doctor. But they must have a signed written agreement with a doctor or hospital willing to step in to provide emergency services if a patient develops problems the midwife cannot handle. Sometimes, getting such an agreement can be difficult. Midwives see the written agreement as a barrier to their ability to practice independently. Doctors see it as a tool to ensure patient safety....

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/18/nyregion/18midwives.html?emc=eta1

Anemona Hartocollis (AP) - Amy Paulin, now a New York State assemblywoman pushing for more independence for midwives, was 27 when she became pregnant with her first child and started doctor-shopping in New York City. Assemblywoman Amy Paulin says a requirement that midwives have written agreements with doctors is not needed. One hospital mistakenly told her she had the Tay-Sachs gene, and one doctor counseled her against eating pizza, she recalled on Thursday. Irked, she ended up having her daughter, now 26, with a midwife in a Bronx hospital. Her next two children were born at her home in Scarsdale, also with the help of midwives....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/may/14/home-births-new-york-midwives

Ed Pilkington - As residents of the world's consumer capital, New Yorkers can have anything delivered to their door at any time. They can have their hair cut in the living room, have champagne and caviar rushed to them on a whim, enjoy a shiatsu massage in their own bed or invite a clairvoyant to predict their future from Tarot cards laid out on the kitchen table. But there is one thing that is currently unavailable for delivery to those who live in this most can-do of metropolises. Women can not legally give birth at home in the presence of a trained and experienced midwife. This city of more than 8 million people, with its reputation for being at the cutting-edge of modern urban living, now lacks a single midwife legally permitted to help women have a baby in their own homes. "It's pretty shocking that in a city where you can get anything any hour of the day a person cannot give birth at home with a trained practitioner," said Elan McAllister, president of the New York-based Choices in Childbirth....

http://www.thebigpushformidwives.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/home.showpage/pageID/2/index.htm

Congresswoman Lois Capps - Today, Rep. Lois Capps introduced the Improving Global Maternal and newborn health Outcomes while Maximizing Successes Act (Global MOMS Act), which would authorize greater assistance for global maternal health efforts and better coordinate ongoing activities. Capps, Christy Turlington Burns, CARE Advocate for Maternal Health and Documentary Director of “NO WOMAN, NO CRY”, Cathy Woolard of CARE, and Theresa Shaver of the White Ribbon Alliance highlighted the bill’s introduction at a press conference at the Capitol this morning. “Safe motherhood should be a basic right for all women. We have a moral obligation to make the right investments and ensure that all women, no matter where they live, have access to basic, life-saving care. The Global MOMS Act would create a comprehensive strategy that better coordinates our efforts on the ground in the countries where women need our help most. In the same way that the President’s Emergency Plan For Aids Relief aligned existing efforts to better coordinate HIV/AIDS prevention efforts already underway, my bill would coordinate existing efforts to combat maternal mortality,” said Capps. ...

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20100509/NEWS06/5090345/1006

Mary Beth Pfeiffer - After years of rising, the 2009 rate of cesarean section births declined at four of six area hospitals, the first data to suggest that a longtime trend may be leveling. At the same time, the number of babies born vaginally to women who had prior cesareans increased 22 percent across the six hospitals, indicating that hospitals may be more amenable to allowing so-called vaginal birth after cesarean, or VBAC, deliveries. Huge declines in VBACs in the past decade have been a major contributor to rising cesarean rates. Kingston Hospital banned the practice in 2008 — as have about half of state birthing centers — but reported 10 such births in 2009....

http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/life/family/article/76522--mother-s-day-feature-the-growing-motherhood-movement-when-parents-get-political

Shawne McKeown - For many people becoming a parent alters their perception of the world and prompts a sense of duty to change things for the better, for the sake of their children and themselves. The groundswell of motherhood movements across North America over the past decade may be a testament to that as thousands of women organize to examine the issues and fight for policy that improves the lives of families....

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/nyregion/06midwives.html

Anemona Hartocollis - As she nears the last month of her pregnancy, Piper Harrell is counting on giving birth to her second child in the same place she had her first, in her second-floor walk-up apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn. But this time, Ms. Harrell, an elementary school teacher, is afraid that if she insists on having her baby at home, she will make her midwife, who has delivered several hundred babies in her 15-year career, an outlaw. Seven of New York’s 13 home-birth midwives, including Ms. Harrell’s, had an agreement with St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan that its doctors would back them up in an emergency. But the bankrupt hospital closed on Friday, and those midwives have been unable to negotiate new practice agreements with other hospitals or obstetricians, as required by state law, leaving them in the position of risking their licenses if they choose to deliver babies. ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/02/AR2010050203407_pf.html

Ovetta Wiggins - Mairi Breen Rothman had to compose herself when asked what she would remember most about her friend, Amy Polk, who was killed in a car accident last week, and the two years Polk spent trying to open a birth center in Takoma Park. "I never heard her say anything negative," said Breen Rothman, a certified nurse-midwife. "If there was a difficult task in front of us, she would just say, 'What is the next thing we could do?' " Polk, 42, was struck and killed while crossing First and M streets SE on Thursday, D.C. police said. She was married and the mother of two sons, ages 4 and 7. Friends, including Breen Rothman, are asking themselves how best to advance Polk's vision. Some of Polk's friends involved in the Birth Options Alliance, a nonprofit group that provides prenatal and postnatal support to mothers, met at Breen Rothman's home in Takoma Park on Saturday to discuss ways to ensure that Seasons of Life Women's Health and Birth Center, Polk's brainchild, becomes a reality. ...

http://www.illinoistimes.com/Springfield/article-7170-letters-to-the-editor-4_8_10.html

Letters to the Editor - Re: “Home delivery,” March 25, by Amanda Robert — It’s so sad that after all these years most expectant parents in Illinois still don’t have the option of choosing legal, midwife-attended home birth. Decades of stats have confirmed that this is a safe, cost-effective option, and expectant parents in Oregon — and many other states — have been happily choosing this option (with insurance coverage) for many years, with consistent positive results. In Illinois, 29 years ago, I was — very uncomfortably — a felon for attending any normal birth with a healthy mother and baby at home as a direct-entry midwife without a physician’s official approval (not available at any cost). But when I moved to Washington that year, and later to Oregon, doing the same thing was entirely legal. It still is legal here, which isn’t a surprise, considering the additional decades of positive accumulated health stats. In fact now, in both states, direct-entry midwives who are willing to go through the paperwork and extra reporting are “preferred providers” paid by insurance, though not doing so doesn’t make their practice illegal. ...

http://www.illinoistimes.com/Springfield/article-7111-home-delivery.html

Amanda Robert - Celeste Tanner, a 30-year-old nurse, had never known anyone who had a baby in a hospital – or anyone who used drugs to dull the pain – until a month ago. The third child and first daughter of a midwife, Tanner grew up around women who had their babies at home. She was taught that certain medications and procedures are needed for ill mothers or babies, but that birthing shouldn’t be treated as a process to “endure and get through.” “Not all pain is bad pain, and it wasn’t the focus of the birth,” says Tanner. “The focus was the woman and her baby, and really bringing attention to their needs at the time.” ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/health/24birth.html?ref=health

Denise Grady - The Caesarean section rate in the United States reached 32 percent in 2007, the country’s highest rate ever, health officials are reporting. The rate has been climbing steadily since 1996, setting records year after year, and Caesarean section has become the most common operation in American hospitals. About 1.4 million Caesareans were performed in 2007, the latest year for which figures are available. The increases — documented in a report published Tuesday — have caused debate and concern for years. When needed, a Caesarean can save the mother and her child from injury or death, but most experts doubt that one in three women need surgery to give birth. Critics say the operation is being performed too often, needlessly exposing women and babies to the risks of major surgery. The ideal rate is not known, but the World Health Organization and health agencies in the United States have suggested 15 percent. ...

http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article365914.ece

Claire Keeton - The sky-high rate of Caesarean-section deliveries in South Africa - about 70% of births in private hospitals - flouts one of the tenets of medicine: only intervene when it is medically indicated. Professor Lynette Denny, from the University of Cape Town's Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department, said: "Any operation that is done without proper evidence-based medical indications is an assault on the patient. "It is wrong and it is putting women at risk. "There is compelling data: a woman is 10 times more likely to end up in ICU with a C-section that is not indicated than with a normal vaginal delivery." ...

http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_feminist_case_for_flawed_reform

Michelle Goldberg - ... The inequities of our health-insurance system are a major reason that the United States has higher maternal mortality than almost any other industrialized country. A new Amnesty International report on America's maternal health crisis suggests that things are only getting worse: "More than two women die every day in the USA from pregnancy-related causes. Maternal deaths are only the tip of the iceberg. Severe complications that result in a woman nearly dying, known as a 'near miss', increased by 25 per cent between 1998 and 2005. During 2004 and 2005, 68,433 women nearly died in childbirth in the USA." Amnesty points out that health-care reform, as currently constituted, will not solve this problem -- among other things, it will still leave too many uninsured. ...

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-welch15-2010mar15,0,6629446.story

H. Gilbert Welch - At both birth and death, the phrase "Do everything possible" is increasingly incompatible with a good life. Here's a question that's not being asked in the healthcare debate: How much medical care do we want in our lives? It's something we should be discussing. Start with the two life events we all experience, birth and death. My profession has gotten pretty good at terrifying (and operating on) pregnant women during what should be one of the greatest experiences in life. And we are equally proficient at dragging the elderly through all sorts of misery on the road to death. Too harsh, you say? Consider this. Two of the most common tests preformed on pregnant American women are obstetrical ultrasound and electronic fetal monitoring. After reviewing experimental studies involving more than 27,000 women, the Cochrane Review -- an independent, international collaboration that summarizes evidence for medical procedures -- found that routine late-pregnancy ultrasound "does not confer benefit on mother or baby." ....

http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?ID=12295

An independent panel met at the National Institutes of Health Wednesday to discuss whether vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC) is a safe or accessible procedure for pregnant US women. The panel consisted of gynecologists, obstetricians and experts in maternal/fetal pain, according to RH Reality Check. They discussed the advantages and risks of both a vaginal delivery and a repeat cesarean, citing a wide range of statistical medical data for and against both cases. ...

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1971633,00.html

Jennifer Block - Amnesty International may be best known to American audiences for bringing to light horror stories abroad such as the disappearance of political activists in Argentina or the abysmal conditions inside South African prisons under apartheid. But in a new report on pregnancy and childbirth care in the U.S., Amnesty details the maternal-health care crisis in this country as part of a systemic violation of women's rights. The report, titled "Deadly Delivery," notes that the likelihood of a woman's dying in childbirth in the U.S. is five times as great as in Greece, four times as great as in Germany and three times as great as in Spain. Every day in the U.S., more than two women die of pregnancy-related causes, with the maternal mortality ratio doubling from 6.6 deaths per 100,000 births in 1987 to 13.3 deaths per 100,000 births in 2006. ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/health/07birth.html?ref=us

Denise Grady (AP) - After less than two hours in the maternity ward, with her boyfriend, his mother and a nurse-midwife by her side, Jacquelynn Torivio gave birth to a five-pound, five-ounce son with his grandmother’s dimples and a full head of shiny black hair. As she held him, Ms. Torivio’s spirits clearly matched her Hopi name, Nuquahynum — “a feather flying high.” It was the kind of birth that many women in the United States could only wish for. Ms. Torivio had a vaginal birth, even though her previous child had been delivered by Caesarean section. Because of that prior surgery, many hospitals would not have let her even try to give birth vaginally, but would have required another Caesarean. ...

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/changing-life-preventing-maternal-mortality/story?id=9914009&page=1

Kate Snow and Sarah Amos - It is something we take for granted in the United States. A woman enters the hospital to give birth and she emerges a couple of days later with a beautiful bundle of joy. That is how it usually goes. But this story is about the rare exception -- women who die within 42 days of childbirth. In the health care community it's called simply "maternal mortality." And in the U.S., many experts believe it is on the rise. According to the World Health Organization, the U.S. ranks behind more than 40 other countries when it comes to maternal death rates, with 11 deaths per 100,000 pregnancies when measured in 2005. More women die in the U.S. after giving birth than die in countries including Poland, Croatia, Italy and Canada, to name a few. ...

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20100301/NEWS/100301017/Midwifery+advocates+push+to+stop+bill

Sheila Byrd (AP) - Renata Hillman has been birthing babies in Mississippi for more than two decades, delivering some 500 children by her own count. Hillman, a certified professional midwife or CPM, said she became concerned about a bill in the Legislature that would put restrictions on who can perform home births. So Hillman, some traditional midwives and midwifery advocates organized and unleashed a barrage of calls and e-mails on lawmakers, urging them to kill the bill. “What they don’t understand is that if they take away the home birth midwives, they’re going to make it more dangerous,” Hillman said. “Families will have their babies unassisted.” ...

http://www.wmctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=12046248

Chip Washington (WMC-TV) - DESOTO COUNTY, MS - Mid-South midwives are concerned about a bill under consideration in Mississippi that would ban them from helping women give birth at home. Midwives like Melissa Stallings say Mississippi House Bill 695 would restrict professional home delivery births across the state. "They're working to outlaw all midwifery except for CNM's that are registered under the Board of Nursing, not even looking at their sister states and what they've done to regulate home birth and make it safe," Stallings said Thursday. ...

http://www.omaha.com/article/20100214/NEWS01/702149893

Rick Ruggles - Legislation that would loosen restrictions on certified nurse midwives appears to be in intensive care and in danger of dying in a legislative committee. “They're tough odds,” said Autumn Cook, chairwoman of Nebraska Friends of Midwives, which is striving to move three bills through the State Legislature. About 25 certified nurse midwives practice in Nebraska, most of them overseeing births or providing other services in hospitals such as the Nebraska Medical Center, Methodist Hospital, Creighton University Medical Center and St. Elizabeth Regional Medical Center in Lincoln. ...

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/features_julieshealthclub/2010/02/once-a-cesarean-section-always-a-csection-.html

Julie Deardorff - Once a woman has delivered three or more babies by cesarean section -- a surgical cut in the mother's abdominal wall and uterus -- doctors rarely encourage a subsequent vaginal birth. But new research suggests that women who deliver vaginally after three or more C-sections have similar rates of success and complications as those who undergo another elective C-section, according to a study in the current issue of the International Journal of Obestetrics and Gynecology. Of the 860 women with three or more prior cesareans, 89 attempted a vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC) and 771 elected for a repeat cesarean. The study sample size was small because it's difficult to find women who try -- or are allowed -- to deliver vaginally after repeated C-sections. ...

http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/145524?page=1

http://www.lakepowellchronicle.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&story_id=1849&page=77

PAGE – A pregnant woman’s pleas not to have an unnecessary caesarean are being ignored by Page Hospital administrators. Joy Szabo, 32, said she is upset with Page Hospital’s general ruling in June prohibiting vaginal births after cesareans (VBAC). The mother of three children, she has given birth to all of her children at Page Hospital, the only hospital in the immediate area. A placenta eruption caused her to have an emergency cesarean delivering her second child, but the hospital allowed her third child to be delivered naturally two years ago. Now pregnant with her fourth child, she is being forced to have a caesarean due to lack of hospital staffing. ...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jwHAbNRHRHIUYpPtHW4AaZpdC_fwD9B0F0MG3

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS (AP), WASHINGTON — Karen Fennell is not your typical high-rolling lobbyist with a fat expense account and clients paying six-figure fees. But this former nurse is doing something that Gucci-clad lobbyists would envy: she's won her clients some coveted federal money in the battle over health care. How she did it is a case study in how Washington's influence game can work, even for those without bottomless checkbooks. She cultivated key allies in Congress, crafted an argument that aligns with the prevailing political winds, and represents a constituency no lawmaker could shun: mothers-to-be. Fennell's clients are birth centers around the country that mainly serve pregnant women who are too poor or too far away from a hospital to have any other option for prenatal care or delivering their babies. Fennell is happy to show lawmakers a letter signed by thousands of their female constituents pleading to keep birth centers open. ...

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090902/LIFE02/909020331/1039/LIFE

Tucked in a backyard in the Roosevelt neighborhood of Des Moines is a resource for learning about natural birth. You won't find a copy of the best-seller "What to Expect When You're Expecting" in Amy Brooks Murphy's outbuilding studio where she conducts "Before and After the Birth" classes for expectant moms. Instead, titles such as "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth," written by midwife Ina May Gaskin, line the bookshelf and nutrition reminders and bits of encouragement are neatly printed on the chalkboard. ...

http://www.brookingsregister.com/V2_news_articles.php?heading=0&page=79&story_id=6019
Brookings citizens gathered Tuesday evening at Cottonwood Coffee to help "walk across the state" to raise awareness about lack of access to certified, professional midwives. Beginning on Aug. 21, Centerville mother Debbie Pease started her trek. ...

http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2009/08/31/home-birth-with-midwife-as-safe-as-hospital-birth.html
MONDAY, Aug. 31 (HealthDay News) -- Having your baby at home with a registered midwife is just as safe as a conventional hospital birth, a new study says. In fact, planned home births of this kind may have a lower rate of complications, according to the study published in the Sept. 15 issue of CMAJ. ...

http://www.dellrapidsinfo.com/article/20090819/NEWS/90817004/1001/SPORTS
To help raise awareness about a need to change state law to authorize Certified Professional Midwives to practice legally in South Dakota, a local mother will join others to walk four miles in Dell Rapids on Aug. 26. Ronda Kvigne, who traveled to Minnesota to have her third child delivered under the care of a Certified Professional Midwife, will be one of at least 50-100 people that are expected to join Debbie Pease on the four-mile walk. “Women need more options,” Kvigne said. “I wanted to have a home birth, but there was no one out there for me.” ...

http://www.babble.com/winning-homebirth-debate/
BY JENNIFER BLOCK - Mention that you are planning a home birth and it might be as if you had just brought up Sarah Palin or Palestine: brace for family feuds, public denunciations, and offhand remarks that imply you are selfish and stupid, your midwife is a quack, and your unborn child is a victim already in need of social services. ...

http://rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/07/29/wheres-the-birth-plan

Obama "won't rest" until he's cut health care costs and improved quality? Over here, Mr. President, says Jennie Joseph, a certified professional midwife who runs a birth center in Winter Garden, Florida. Midwives like Joseph provide what you could call "less-is-more care." Compared to healthy women who get standard obstetric care and deliver on high-tech labor and delivery wards, women with low-risk pregnancies who get care with a midwife and deliver in birth centers or even in their own homes, benefit from a five-fold decrease in the chance of a cesarean delivery, more success with breastfeeding, and less likelihood that their baby will be born too early or end up in intensive care. And all of this for a fraction of the cost of the status quo. ...

http://www.bhamweekly.com/2009/07/09/the-big-push-birmingham-hosts-national-midwifery-conference/

Jennifer Crook Moore of Birmingham is a midwife. She is, in fact, a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM), trained and certified to assist women in that most primal act, the birth of a child, and to do so in the mother’s home rather than in a hospital.  Moore and other CPMs follow a protocol called the Midwives Model of Care. According to the MMOC, the midwife should be aware of the expectant mother’s psychological as well as physical wellbeing, and provide her with prenatal care, assistance during labor and delivery and postpartum support, as well as individualized counseling in such areas as nutrition. ...

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=delivering_affordable_healthcare
Hospital deliveries are now the norm, but home births may actually be better for women -- and government's pocketbook. Michelle Bartlett is not the typical Washington high-stakes health-care player. She's probably not on the radar of anyone in Congress or the Obama administration. Bartlett is a midwife in Idaho, but in the last few years, she's been trying her hand at lobbying. This came after a night spent in jail for using medication during a home birth she attended in 2000. Bartlett was the second midwife to be charged for this type of practice in Idaho, and thanks to her efforts, she will be the last in her state. "I've done a lot of hard things in my life, and giving birth was one of them," Bartlett says. "But giving birth to a law was really hard." ...

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-oe-tanner5-2009jul05,0,915371.story
President Obama is right when he says that the U.S. healthcare system needs reform. Although this country provides the finest care in the world, our healthcare system has serious problems. It costs too much. Too many people lack health insurance. And quality can be uneven. ... [READ THIRD PARAGRAPH FROM END TO SEE MIDWIVES MENTIONED]

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all

It is spring in McAllen, Texas. The morning sun is warm. The streets are lined with palm trees and pickup trucks. McAllen is in Hidalgo County, which has the lowest household income in the country, but it’s a border town, and a thriving foreign-trade zone has kept the unemployment rate below ten per cent. McAllen calls itself the Square Dance Capital of the World. “Lonesome Dove” was set around here. ...

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/17/business/fi-cover-birth17
As the expensive surgery's popularity rises, so have premature births, maternal deaths and neonatal intensive care admissions. Serious medical intervention has diminishing returns, a doctor notes. -- After an emergency cesarean with her first baby, Ruby Wales was holding out for a vaginal birth with her second one. With a toddler underfoot, the 33-year-old Mission Viejo woman wanted a faster recovery. But finding a physician to deliver her second child wasn't easy. Her first obstetrician turned her down flat. "She said, 'No -- no way,' " Wales recalled

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1898316,00.html
LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

I would like to point to a factual error in Jeffrey Kluger's May 16 article, "Doctors Versus Midwives: The Birth Wars Rage On."

The author states that home births "attended by trained nurse-midwives are no less safe than hospital births . . . providing the midwives are affiliated with a nearby hospital to which the mothers can be brought in case of complications." He then follows with a quote stating that the "'most comprehensive study of this was published in the British Medical Journal in 2005," says Melissa Cheyney, an assistant professor of anthropology at OSU and a practicing midwife herself. "It showed that for low-risk [home] births in the U.S. and Canada, the infant mortality rate was roughly 1.7 per 1,000, or about the same as it is in hospitals.'"

In fact, this study examined the outcomes of all births attended by Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) in North America during the year 2000, not the outcomes of babies delivered by Certified Nurse-Midwives (CNMs), whose practices are primarily hospital-based. The CPM is the only national midwifery credential in the US that requires specialized training in out-of-hospital settings and that prepares midwives to develop expertise in out-of-hospital birth, and the vast majority of babies born at home and in birth centers are delivered by CPMs. No CNMs participated in the 2005 BMJ study referenced in "Doctors Versus Midwives."

Moreover, the objective of the study was to evaluate the outcomes of CPMs in "jurisdictions where the practice is not well integrated into the healthcare system," (read the study here) not in situations where midwives are affiliated with a nearby hospital. CPMs are not legally authorized to practice in just under half the states. The fact that they produce excellent outcomes in the face of less-than-ideal practice environments in many states is a testament to the rigorous educational and training process required to qualify as a CPM.

In recognition of the need for midwives with expertise in out-of-hospital birth, since publication of the BMJ study, Virginia, Utah, Wisconsin, Missouri, Maine and Idaho have joined the growing number of states that legally authorize CPMs to provide maternity care, with legislation pending in a dozen more states. As CPMs become more fully integrated into our health care system, we see the "Doctors Versus Midwives" wars transform into "Doctors Working With Midwives" partnerships.

To learn more about the contributions of CPMs to our maternity care system, please attend the May 21st Issue Briefing on Out-of-Hospital Maternity Care and Health Care Reform at the Sewall-Belmont House, 144 Constitution Avenue, NE from 8:00 to 9:00 am. Speakers include the authors of the 2005 BMJ study as well as an economist and public health specialist with expertise in the clinical and economic benefits associated with out-of-hospital deliveries under the care of CPMs.

Katherine Prown, PhD
Campaign Manager, The Big Push for Midwives Campaign

http://www.kpvi.com/Global/story.asp?S=10334863
Midwifes in Idaho have something to be excited about, after legislation passed a new law allowing them to be licensed in the state of Idaho. Saturday afternoon Midwifes from all over Eastern Idaho gather to celebrate this accomplishment during Midwifes' Day in Idaho Falls.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/broward/story/1039515.html?story_link=email_msg
Last year, for the first time, more babies in Miami-Dade County were born by cesarean section than were born vaginally, according to state records, and Broward's not far behind, with a rate of 43.7 percent -- both far above the national average. At Kendall Regional Medical Center in Southwest Miami-Dade, seven out of 10 babies were delivered by C-section, a rate that University of Miami obstetrician Gene Burkett called ``just astounding.'' ...

http://www.opb.org/thinkoutloud/shows/battling-over-birth/
Oregon State University says a new study describes a "pattern of distrust" in the relationship between hospital physicians and midwives who transport their patients to hospitals due to complications during homebirths. ...

http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A394594
For the past 25 years, women in North Carolina who wanted to deliver their babies at home have had very little choice in health care practitioners. Because independent midwifery is illegal here, with few exceptions, families are served by practitioners licensed in other states or not licensed at all. A bill pending in the N.C. General Assembly aims to change that, allowing for the first time in a quarter-century for midwives who operate independently from physicians to practice legally and seek licensure. ...

http://www.healthnewsdigest.com/news/Legal_370/Oregon_State_University_Study_Reveals_Conflict_between_Doctors_Midwives_over_Homebirth.shtml
Two Oregon State University researchers have uncovered a pattern of distrust – and sometimes outright antagonism – among physicians at hospitals and midwives who are transporting their home birth clients to the hospital because of complications. ...

http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2009/05/certified_professional_midwive.html
A couple of hundred people are expected to gather at the Statehouse in Columbus today for what is being billed as the "Mother of All Rallies." ...

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/30455309/
The actress and former talk show host makes the case for natural birth ...

http://volumeone.org/magazine/articles/511/No_Place_Like_Home.html
Paula Bernini Fiegal has helped 400 hundred women give birth since becoming a Certified Professional Midwife in 1993. (That translates to having witnessed 4,000 tiny fingers and 4,000 tiny toes for the first time!) Seventy percent of those births happened at Morning Star Birth Center in Menomonie, where Paula is director, and 30 percent have taken place right at home. ...

http://www.bhamweekly.com/2009/04/09/women-birthing-jennifer-crook-moore/
"There's no better feeling than seeing a woman give birth to her baby, on her own terms, then look at you and say, 'I did it,'" says Jennifer Crook Moore, a Birmingham midwife. Women, Moore believes, should not be forced to depend solely on hospitals and doctors for birthing, something women have been forced to do in modern times. ...

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20090402/COLUMNIST/904021039/2127?Title=Sarasota-Memorial-can-help-reduce-high-C-section-rates
When used appropriately, Caesarean section can be lifesaving, and I am grateful for the skilled obstetricians who perform this surgery. However, the national C-section rate has increased by 50 percent since 1996, and was 31.8 percent in 2007, more than double the World Health Organization's maximum recommended rate of 15 percent. Florida's numbers are even higher, and at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, that rate in 2007 was 41.3 percent -- almost triple the WHO recommendation (http://www. floridahealthfinder.gov/Researchers/QuickStat/cesarean-buffer.shtml). It is time to reverse this dangerous trend. ...

http://colorsnw.com/colors/2005/03/02/rebirth-of-a-tradition-african-american-midwife-caters-to-resurging-interest-in-birthing-care/
Just as generations of women had done before her, Michelle Sarju's grandmother birthed her first four children at home with the help of a midwife. But when it came time to deliver her next child, Sarju's grandmother took advantage of the latest trend back then in the 1940s. She went to a Catholic hospital. " 'My doctor said you Negro women can go to the hospital now,' " Sarju says, quoting her grandmother. So her grandmother went. ...

http://www.idahostatesman.com/business/story/710702.html
Lawmakers decided Wednesday to require midwives to get training and in some cases to let them dispense medication. Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, said the public expects all medical professionals to have training. ...

http://www.chicagotalks.org/2009/03/24/
Women choosing to give birth at home suffered a major defeat this month when an Illinois House committee voted down a bill that would have allowed certified professional midwives to deliver babies. ...

www.kansascity.com/238/story/1092069.html
She's lived on her own since she was 16, earned a full-ride scholarship to Carnegie Mellon University and had two home births. She started her own communications company, worked on Kay Barnes' mayoral campaign, met Matt Damon and Army Gen. David Petraeus, and once got a thank-you letter from a little-known senator named Barack Obama. ...

http://www.nebraska.tv/Global/story.asp?S=9990468
College instructors don't normally worry about breaking the law. But Matt Whitman recently told lawmakers he was prepared to commit civil disobedience. After Whitman and his wife Camilla gave birth to their first child at home in Nevada, they wanted the same experience after moving back to Nebraska. But they learned doing so can risk breaking the law, because midwives aren't allowed at home births. ...

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_614544.html
Ten hours after delivering her third son, Rebecca Sanchez relaxed with him in a double bed at The Midwife Center for Birth & Women's Health in Pittsburgh, waiting for her husband to take them home. ...

http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2009/02/26/news/19local_02-26-09.txt
Wyoming will not become the 25th state to license certified professional midwives. Legislation to legalize midwifery died in a House committee Wednesday. ...

http://argusobserver.com/articles/2009/02/20/news/doc499efaaeed92e447989098.txt
Midwives say they've addressed doctors' and hospitals' concerns over a plan to license midwives, after opposition helped kill a similar proposal last year. ...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1880665-1,00.html
For many pregnant women in America, it is easier today to walk into a hospital and request major abdominal surgery than it is to give birth as nature intended. Jessica Barton knows this all too well. At 33, the curriculum developer in Santa Barbara, Calif., is expecting her second child in June. But since her first child ended up being delivered by cesarean section, she can't find an obstetrician in her county who will let her even try to push this go-round. And she could locate only one doctor in nearby Ventura County who allows the option of vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC). But what if he's not on call the day she goes into labor? That's why, in order to give birth the old-fashioned way, Barton is planning to go to UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. "One of my biggest worries is the 100-mile drive to the hospital," she says. "It can take from 2 to 3 1/2 hours. I know it will be uncomfortable, and I worry about waiting too long and giving birth in the car." ...

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20090217/ARTICLE/902160258?Title=Home_delivery
Emerson Joel Pallante arrived into the world in a dining room, emerging from his mother at 4:47 a.m. into an inflatable plastic pool filled with warm water. The unusual birth was the choice of his mother, Veronica Pallante, and father, Richard, who live in east Manatee County. Emerson is their third son. ...

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/feb/15/business-spotlight-for-expectant-moms-a-happy/
Drawn by a Web site, expectant mothers on the Kitsap Peninsula and beyond have been calling Kevin and Jennifer Decker, interested in having their babies at Poplar Heights Birth and Wellness Center in Port Orchard. ...

http://www.wvgazette.com/HomeandStyle/200902120822

http://www.ksfy.com/news/local/39371167.html
A South Dakota House committee has rejected a bill that would have allowed midwives to help women have babies at home. ...

www.ksfy.com/news/local/39287782.html

www.wifr.com/news/headlines/39240767.html

http://www.trib.com/articles/2009/02/05/news/wyoming/23f4f0e4f84dce0a8725755500060cb7.txt
A bill that would expand home-birth options for mothers in the state and create a Wyoming board of midwifery passed through the Senate on Thursday. ...

http://www.lvrj.com/living/38770287.html
The bone-crushing agony. The spine-chilling terror. The blood-curdling screams. Valerie Melotti can't believe how much I'm overreacting as she delivers her baby in front of me. (Every now and then, I check my pants for deliveries of my own.) "It's about me over here," Melotti says in the 150-gallon birthing pool erected in her Henderson living room. ...

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=6751827
With health care costs high on the national agenda, advocates of home births are challenging the medical and political establishments to give midwives a larger role in maternity care and to ease the state laws that limit their out-of-hospital practice. ...

www2.arkansasonline.com/news/2009/jan/25/midwife-offerings-include-intimacy-mom--be
A soccer player at the University of Arkansas, Jennifer Creel was fit and healthy when her first child was conceived in 1994. She returned home to Nashville to deliver her baby naturally in a hospital. But the experience wasn't what she expected. ...

http://www.idahostatesman.com/business/story/633232.html
After being slapped down last year, Idaho midwives are going back to the Legislature to push for a new bill that would require everyone who delivers babies to have a license or face penalties. ...

http://www.wlos.com/shared/newsroom/top_stories/wlos_vid_1967.shtml

http://www.digtriad.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=117368&catid=57
The North Carolina House Select Committee on Licensing Midwives wants to give midwives legal recognition. Right now, there are no laws in North Carolina to regulate certified professional midwives. They deliver babies in private homes and freestanding birth centers. ...

www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-block24-2008dec24,0,2046506.story
Some healthcare trivia: In the United States, what is the No. 1 reason people are admitted to the hospital? Not diabetes, not heart attack, not stroke. The answer is something that isn't even a disease: childbirth. ...

www.ozarksfirst.com/content/fulltext/?cid=98951

www.ozarksfirst.com/content/fulltext/?cid=98651

www.salemnews.com/punews/local_story_350234149.html?keyword=secondarystory

www.state-journal.com/news/article/4474676

www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/garden/13birth.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-10-08-childbirth-costs_N.htm

http://www.consumerreports.org/health/medical-conditions-treatments/pregnancy-childbirth/maternity-care/overview/maternity-care.htm
When it's time to bring a new baby into the world, there's a lot to be said for letting nature take the lead. The normal, hormone-driven changes in the body that naturally occur during delivery can optimize infant health and encourage the easy establishment and continuation of breastfeeding and mother-baby attachment. Childbirth without technical intervention can succeed in leading to a good outcome for mother and child, according to a new report. (Take our maternity-care quiz to test your knowledge.) ...

www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/3756

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/08/eveningnews/main4428250.shtml

www.kndo.com/Global/story.asp?s=8882118

www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/93484/the_truth_about_home_births

www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080813/OPINION03/808130319/1039/OPINION03

www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-flohomebirths0810sbaug10,0,3470307.story

www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1830388,00.html

www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080729/LIFESTYLE03/807290383&imw=Y

www.abcnews.go.com/Health/ReproductiveHealth/Story?id=5462833&page=1

http://features.csmonitor.com/backstory/2008/07/22/a-home-birth-midwife-returns-to-practice/
Midwife Diane Goslin's farmhouse office bustles with activity this summer morning. Horse drawn buggies line the driveway, while pregnant women line the waiting room inside – their hair tucked into bonnets, their dark dresses covered by black aprons. A mother expecting her 11th child arrives with her daughter, who is expecting her first. Women do mending as toddlers scoot around their ankles. Childhood friends reunite, chattering in Pennsylvania Dutch. Sisters shriek with laughter at the unexpected sight of their expectant aunt. ...

www.tampabay.com/news/article697471.ece

www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-oe-block9-2008jul09,0,1062600.story

www.weeklydig.com/news-opinions/news-us/200807/meddling-midwives

www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=15918

www.usatoday.com/life/people/2008-06-17-ricki-lake_N.htm

www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A258691

www.coastalpoint.com/content/its_your_birth_show_it

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/apr/25/women.children

www.newsweek.com/id/113700

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-midwives_25jan25,0,2810079.story