More good news on the midwifery front, this time from Wyoming!
A bill was signed into law there on March 5th, legalizing the practice of Certified Professional Midwives. CPMs are midwives that are trained to practice in homes or birth centers. They are an essential player in out of hospital birth access.
Yay Wyoming!
According to the Big Push, Nevada is now the only state in Western US that does not allow CPMs to practice.
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Posted by radicaldoula
Great news from Mississippi. The bill that had passed the House there and was headed to the Senate was defeated.
Woot!
For background on the bill go here, and thanks to everyone who took action.
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Posted by radicaldoula
A new investigative report released by California Watch reports that maternal mortality rates in California have seen a spike in recent years, almost tripling in the last ten years.
To me, there is one clear cause of this kind of increase, and that’s the c-section rate, which according to California Watch have increased 50% in the same decade in CA.
The World Health Organization recommends a c-section rate of about 10%. We currently have a national average of 30%. In some hospitals it’s as high as 90%.
C-sections are major abdominal surgery. There are risks involved, and with so many c-sections, you’re going to start having deaths as a result.
We need less c-sections. Period.
The other thing this report revealed was that there was significant increase in maternal mortality among non-Hispanic whites, a group traditionally excluded from maternal mortality and low infant birth weights. Well again, this is probably because of the c-section rates, which might even be higher among this group than women of color.
The idea that increases in technology use could actually harm women, rather than help them, is impossible to believe for the OB-GYN community:
When researchers unveiled their initial findings to a conference of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in 2007, there were gasps from the audience, according to participants at the San Diego event. The idea that California was moving backward even in an era of high-tech birthing was implausible to some.
This is exactly the point. Overusing technology it’s just as harmful as under-utilizing it. The bottom line is that OB-GYNs are trained as surgeons, and their dominance of maternity care is proof of that–they are performing more and more surgeries than ever.
We need practitioners who are trained to care for women birthing without technology, namely midwives. Technology has a role, but it should be the exception not the rule. And let’s be clear here. It’s not just c-sections that are to blame. It’s also increasing induction rates, epidurals and other medical interventions that disrupt the process and are more likely to cause interventions.
“For every maternal death, there are 10 near misses; for every near miss, there are 10 severe morbidity cases (such as hysterectomy, hemorrhage, or infection), and for every severe morbidity case, there is another 10 morbidity cases related to childbirth,” Camacho wrote in an e-mail.
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Posted by radicaldoula
I first saw this story over at Unnecesearan, and I’m happy to say that by the time I got to posting about it, some resolution was reached.
You can see a video of the news coverage, but basically a baby in the 99th percentile for size was denied coverage by a health insurance company.
Thanks to a ton of news coverage (possibly fueled by the father’s job as a newscaster in Colorado) the insurance company has reversed it’s policy. The company called it a flaw, but we all know that these kind of denials are pervasive and not going to go away on their own.
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Posted by radicaldoula
I’m really excited to share the news that Jennie Joseph’s new midwifery school, Commonsense Childbirth School of Midwifery, is opening this Winter in Central Florida, near Orlando.
I got the chance to meet Jennie Joseph recently and she is really fantastic. She has a down-to-earth no nonsense approach to birth care, with an important focus on low-income women and women of color. What she does works–it really has transformed outcomes in her community.
We need more midwives, and that means we need more midwifery schools. Yay!
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Posted by radicaldoula
Ugh. That’s how I feel everytime I get another press release from the Big Push for Midwives, or see another blog post from a doula or midwifery blog about what ACOG–the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology is up to. Just ugh. The latest: a totally biased segment on the Today show. To be honest, I couldn’t bring myself to watch it. If you want to see for yourself, it’s here.
Oh, and then there was the internet campaign to get stories about the “problem” of desire for out of hospital births. And before that was when they announced they would “allow” women in labor to drink modest amounts of clear liquids, but no food.
They’ve already GOT A MONOPOLY on birth in the US. 99 freaking percent of women are giving birth in the hospitals they control. That’s not enough apparently, because they are afraid. They are scared of all of us, of all the folks out there who are catching on about a different way to be, about how they can escape the hospital and reclaim some autonomy. They’re afraid of the 1% of women who have caught on, who give birth outside the hospital and away from their surgeons.
Still, because they are scared and they are more worried about the professional interests of doctors than the desires of their patients, they continue with their smear campaigns. The one thing that gives me comfort is that their fear is an indicator of our power. So let’s use it folks. People are catching on, and that is real.
The one positive thing that ACOG did recently was admit that their practices–which they say are fueled by fear of being sued–”ultimately hurt patients.” I would say that’s not the whole story, ACOG, but I will give you that our litigious society (and crappy doctor/patient relationship with little trust) makes things worse. Jill at Unnecesarean has more on this, but I would just add that midwives are also suffering from this litigious society and the fear of being sued. Often it’s not even the parents they care for who sue them–but local doctors who disagree with their practices. You can read about one of these midwives in my piece in The American Prospect. Again, she took this one doctor’s fear of her and turned it into action–helping to pass legislation in April to legalize the practice of CPMs there.
New legislation in Australia that requires all midwives to be insured may make home birth illegal and inaccessible.
From News.Com.Au:
Under the draft Health Practitioner Regulation National Law, released last week, a midwife cannot be registered unless she has insurance.
But with insurance companies and the Government so far refusing to include homebirths in the indemnity scheme, midwives will face being de-registered if they attend a homebirth.
This is really terrible and this insurance squeeze often effectively makes midwifery illegal/inaccessible in the US too.
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Posted by radicaldoula
Probably my favorite magazine of ALL TIME, Bitch, is in trouble. They need your help. I donated, now it is your turn.
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Posted by radicaldoula
From the Big Push for Midwives:
Big Push Campaign Launches the 2008 “Independence Day Midwives PushDrive”
Since the American Medical Association (AMA) voted in June to outlaw home birth, we are doubling our efforts to advocate for freedom of birth options for our nation’s mothers and families.
While the AMA and the American College of Obstetricians (ACOG) are likely to back a forceful lobbying operation in Statehouses from coast-to-coast in the months to come, we are P-U-S-H-I-N-G back … building state-of-the-art advocacy campaigns toward successful regulation and licensure of Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) … helping our state member groups to stand up together, united for safe and legal birth choices.
Why so urgent?
Beyond this David-and-Goliath struggle, we face a critical problem in our society. Nearly 1 in 3 American women are going through major surgery to give birth, but only a fraction of those women would be considered “high risk.” Yet, in spite of the lack of medical necessity for many such cases, the most frequently performed surgery in the U.S. is the cesarean section at 1.3 million surgeries per year. Given present trends, our nation is headed for a staggering 40-50% cesarean surgery rate.
For many reasons, this newly emerging health policy issue is urgent, and some go so far as to say that the civil rights of pregnant women are being disregarded … that mothers and their families are not being fully informed nor adequately supported in their quest for maximal results with minimal interventions.
What is the Big Push for Midwives Campaign?
The Big Push for Midwives Campaign is the first initiative of the National Birth Policy Coalition (NBPC). We play a critical role in building a new model for the delivery of U.S. maternity care at the local and regional levels. At the heart of this plan is the Midwives Model of Care, based on the fact that pregnancy and birth are normal life processes.
Through local and national media attention, public education and coalition building, we are creating meaningful consumer protections and a system into which midwives are fully integrated, with increased transparency and accountability for the health and well-being of mothers and babies.
You can help the Big Push for Midwives Campaign stay in top pushing-for-birth-independence form!
Just as the research shows that food and water should not be withheld from laboring women during their marathon-like efforts in birth, our Caring Campaign Midwives remind us that we need nourishment for this journey to ensure we can perform our most critical functions this month.
We must raise $25,000 in the month of July to pay for the tools, staff and resources necessary to deliver consistent and well-executed communications and collaborate among our geographically dispersed teams.
Please show your leadership on national health issues and your willingness to support our innovative approach to rehabilitating our U.S. maternity care system. Please consider contributing immediately to our campaign in any amount that is feasible. $10, $20, $50, $100, $500, or even more.
We so appreciate any amount! Donate here
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Posted by radicaldoula
Unfortunately, this is not surprising.
Maternity care is a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States,” said Steff Hedenkamp, Communications Coordinator for The Big Push for Midwives. “So it’s no surprise to see the AMA join the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in its ongoing fight to corner the market and ensure that the only midwives able to practice legally are hospital-based midwives forced to practice under physician control. I will say, though, that I’m shocked to learn that the AMA is taking this turf battle to the next level by setting the stage for outlawing home birth itself—a direct attack on those families who choose home birth, who could be subject to criminal prosecution if the AMA has its way.
The Big Push for Midwives has released this story (the above text is from their press release). What people tend to forget is that the American Medical Association is a professional association, not a scientific or medical (and therefore unbiased) organization.
It’s hard to see this as anything other a business ploy to further dominate (and secure) their place in the market. With how expensive childbirth is, it’s a lucrative market. This mode of business-oriented thinking has dominated the attempt to push out midwives since the beginning of obstetrics. What’s missing here? Perhaps what is best for the mother? Just a thought.
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Posted by radicaldoula
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Miriam at Feministing
