We must improve our U.S. maternity model, as demanded by the urgent problems with maternal and infant health, excess bad outcomes (premature, very low birth weight babies), and the infant mortality gap between the races that has been widening in recent years.
Why Certified Professional Midwives?
CPM licensure provides many benefits:
Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) serve a disproportionate number of low-income, rural, immigrant and uninsured families. Regulation and licensure of CPMs ensures that there are enough well-trained midwives to meet the demand for out-of-hospital birth and to provide safe and affordable maternity care for underserved populations.
Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) serve a disproportionate number of low-income, rural, immigrant and uninsured families. Regulation and licensure of CPMs ensures that there are enough well-trained midwives to meet the demand for out-of-hospital birth and to provide safe and affordable maternity care for underserved populations.
CPM licensure protects and defends the rights of American women and families by:
- Providing a mechanism for families choosing out-of-hospital birth to verify their midwife's training, skills and educational credentials
- Ensuring adherence to evidence-based practices and providing for transparency and accountability
- Ensuring continuity of care and offering liability protection to physicians who collaborate with midwives
- Providing access to:
- A family-centered model of maternity care that offers individualized education, counseling, screening and pre-natal care
- Continuous hands-on assistance during labor and delivery
- Minimal use of costly technological interventions
- Support of the physical, psychological and social well-being of mothers and families throughout the childbearing cycle
- Ensuring that every family can choose their birth provider and setting based on their religious, cultural and philosophical beliefs
- Ensuring the availability of qualified and experienced out-of-hospital maternity care providers in the event of an emergency that makes hospital care inaccessible (e.g. a hurricane or other natural disaster, or flu epidemic). Access to out-of-hospital maternity care is in keeping with the mission of the National Working Group for Women and Infant Needs in Emergencies to ensure that the health care needs of pregnant women, new mothers, newborns and infants are adequately met during and after a disaster situation.
CPMs follow the practice standards of the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives (NACPM), which include the development of collaborative relationships with other healthcare practitioners who can provide care outside the scope of midwifery practice when necessary. The NACPM standards limit the CPM scope of practice to the primary maternity care of healthy women experiencing normal pregnancies.
The American Public Health Association (APHA) recognizes the CPM training and clinical skills assessment process as the basis of a national certification program for licensing midwives who provide out-of-hospital maternity care services.
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BENEFITS of CPM Licensure
Learn more about how CPM licensure protects and defends the rights of American women and families.
