Expertise in advocacy, facilitation, and state-level practice guidelines

Jane Crawford Peterson, CPM, LM, has more than 26 years experience as a leader in midwifery education and advocacy. During the course of her career as a midwife, she has delivered more than 1330 babies. Her clinical experience as a midwife became the basis for her advocacy on behalf of the creation of a statewide set of practice guidelines in Wisconsin, which were later incorporated into the national midwifery credentialing and practice standards that form the basis of the Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) credential and the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives (NACPM) Standards of Practice.

Jane is the Advocacy Trainer and Professional Facilitator for the Big Push for Midwives Campaign. A founding member of the Wisconsin Center for Midwifery Studies, Jane was instrumental in coordinating and implementing programs among public health departments, midwives, the Bureau of Vital Statistics, and the State Laboratory for Hygiene to facilitate the implementation of newborn screening programs targeting underserved populations throughout the state. Together, these programs have resulted in a 70 percent increase in newborn screening compliance among at-risk populations for the early detection of metabolic diseases that, if left untreated, can cause severe illness, brain damage or death.

In her capacity as President of the Wisconsin Guild of Midwives, the professional organization for midwives providing out-of-hospital maternity care in the state since 1975, Jane co-led the statewide, bipartisan grassroots organizing effort to successfully pass Act 292, which authorizes Certified Professional Midwives in Wisconsin to become licensed and regulated healthcare providers. In recognition of her longstanding outreach among Wisconsin's plainclothes (Amish and Mennonite) communities, Jane was awarded grants by the March of Dimes and the Waisman Center. These grants are in support of her work to establish library and printed resources for plainclothes families about prenatal care and childbirth and to co-author Plain Talk about Babies, an educational pamphlet designed to raise awareness among both providers and the families they care for about the genetic conditions specific to plainclothes populations, as well as the prenatal and pregnancy-related maternity care protocols appropriate to those populations.

Jane has a BS in General Science and Education from the University of Wisconsin, Steven's Point and is a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) credentialed by the North American Registry of Midwives (NARM), as well as a Licensed Midwife in the State of Wisconsin. She has also completed midwifery course requirements from the American Childbirth Institute and the American Academy of Midwifery and Family Centered Maternity Care.