activism

Massachusetts Midwifery Bill needs your help

MZP2 Comments

Our friends over at the Big Push for Midwives sent an action alert about a midwifery bill that is close to passing in Massachusetts. The details are below, and if you are in MA, lend a hand by calling your representatives today. The session ends tomorrow!

Good news!!! We are steps away from getting the midwifery bill—that so many of us have worked on for so long—passed this legislative session, which ends THIS SATURDAY, 31 July.

Even if you have already done so, please call and/or email your OWN Mass Rep. today, tomorrow, or any day you can this week, asking them to reach out to Speaker DeLeo to bring the bill to the House floor for a vote and to help pass the bill THIS SESSION.

Please note the bill, is now known as House 4810: An Act Relative to Certified Professional Midwives and Enhancing the Practice of Nurse-Midwives.

Who’s your rep? You can find them at the following link: http://www.wheredoivotema.com/bal/myelectioninfo.php

Text of the bill can be found at the following link: http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/house/186/ht04/ht04810.htm

Thank you again to the whole coalition for all of your excellent work. We could not have come this far without everyone’s expertise, experience, passion, and all the good work you are already doing to address this critical issue.

Keep the pressure on!!!
Ann Sweeney
President, Mass Friends of Midwives (MFOM)
www.mfom.org
617-901-2777

Take action today!

Shackling of pregnant incarcerated women covered by NPR

MZP2 Comments

Last week, NPR ran a story about the shackling of pregnant incarcerated women. It’s an issue we know well by now, but the mainstream attention it’s getting is important.

You can listen to or read the story here.

The movement to outlaw shackling is gaining traction, and unlike much of what we work on, this issue has few opponents (not none, but few).

But even when we are able to push through legislative measures, the fight doesn’t end there. Enforcement of these measures is really difficult, because of the complicated system of authority in prisons. Procedure can be decided by one authority figure in the prison.

A doula I know who works with incarcerated women recently explained to me that putting restrictions on shackling isn’t enough. It isn’t just about shackling during delivery, or even labor, but also during routine medical exams for folks who are pregnant and folks who are not.

The bottom line is that we can’t stop just with these policies. It’s connected to the broader issue of how folks are treated when they are incarcerated, and how we make sure these changes get enforced.

For more background check out this article by Anna Clark at RH Reality Check.

New radical birth magazine: SQUAT

MZP1 Comment

SQUAT cover with woman and babyA new radical birth publication, SQUAT, just came out with it’s first issue this week. The tagline of SQUAT is “An anarchist birth journal.”

I’m proud to say I contributed a piece to the first edition of the magazine, about being a radical doula. SQUAT is a real live print publication, which you can order from magcloud here. You can also preview it there, and it looks pretty freaking awesome. I miss the paper in hand publication days sometimes, and this one looks like it’s got a great layout.

The folks at SQUAT are also organizing a camp, which they say will be “a radical celebration of midwifery and birth!” It’s in August in Washington State. Details here.

If you want to buy the first edition of SQUAT, go here. I also have a sneak preview of my article after the jump!

Continue reading →

Where’s my midwife?

MZP3 Comments

Sylvia from a new organization, Where’s my midwife? sent me this video. It chronicles the response to a Wilmington, NC ob-gyn practice that one day decided to fire all their midwives. The physicians told them that they didn’t want to “wait around for the midwifery patients to give birth.” This is unfortunately not a new or unique story. It’s happening all around the country. Midwives need autonomy from doctors who can control their ability to practice.

I got chills multiple times while watching.

It’s a success story, as their grassroots organizing resulted in a reversal of the antiquated hospital policy that required an OB to be present when a woman was giving birth with a midwife. Doesn’t look like the midwives got rehired though.

This movement is growing, that’s for sure. In just the three years I’ve been writing this blog, the activism and activity around this issue has exploded. There are so many more doulas, midwives, parent advocates. Things are getting worse in the world of birth, and it’s getting people activated.

Where’s My Midwife is continuing their activism beyond this one instance, and working to open a Birth and Wellness Center in Wilmington NC in May 2015.

International Midwives Day

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Today is International Midwives Day (and Cinco de Mayo).

Choices in Childbirth thinks that a good way to support International Midwives Day is to take action to help the homebirth midwives in NYC who are unable to practice since St. Vincent’s shut down.

What better way to celebrate than helping us support the Midwifery Modernization Act?!

PLEASE – Take a moment to review this action alert, and set aside 15 minutes of your day to call your local legislators to ask for their support of this crucial piece of legislation.

We will be organizing in-person visits to the local (NYC) offices of our state representatives in the coming weeks. Please contact Terry if you are interested in showing up and talking directly to legislators! Terry@choicesinchildbirth.org

**We particularly need more supporters from Queens!**

** If you haven’t yet, please sign the petition in support of the Midwifery Modernization Act

** For more information about the MMA, view the:
– NYSALM fact sheet
– and Free Our Midwives Website

** And for more information and more ways to celebrate the International Day of the Midwife, visit www.InternationalMidwives.org!

Go to it!

Video and update about NYC midwives

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Rachel, a doula from New Jersey, sent me this video she made about what she fears the birth future will be like.

So the situation with the NYC homebirth midwives has not been resolved, despite amazing advocacy and action on all your parts. The Department of Health told Choices in Childbirth they got more calls about this issue than any other, ever.

I’ll keep folks posted if I hear anything else about the situation in NYC.

UPDATE: Lauren at Birth and Bloom has an account of the press conference that happened on Friday.

At midnight tonight, half of NYC’s homebirth midwives will be illegal

MZP4 Comments

St. Vincent’s is closing. It’s a bad situation for many involved, the women who gave birth there, the other patients who received care there. No attempts at saving the hospital have worked.

Another result of the closure is that the NYC home birth midwives no longer have a back-up hospital or WPA (written practice agreement). They need this WPA, signed by a doctor, in order to practice in NY, even though those doctors have little to no involvement in their practice. St. Vincent’s was one of the only supportive hospitals in the city.

About half of the homebirth midwives in NYC have found other people to back them up–but the other half are stuck. At midnight tonight, they can no longer practice legally, despite the fact that they are licensed practitioners.

It’s a mess, and the NY government is not considering this an emergency because their patients can “just give birth in a hospital.”

We all know why this is unacceptable.

You can help. Take action today to put pressure on the NY State Department of Health:

YOU MUST ACT NOW to save the home birth option for New York Women:
Call:
  • 311
  • Wendy Saunders, Executive Deputy Commissioner for the NY State Department of Health, appointed by Governor Paterson. 518-474-8390
  • Larry Mokhiber, the Secretary of the Board of Midwifery (518-474-3817, extension 130)
And say….

With the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital, half of the licensed, highly trained home birth midwives serving NYC have lost their Written Practice Agreement (WPA).   St Vincent’s was the only Hospital in the city supportive of a woman’s right to choose a home birth and willing to sign a WPA.  In the weeks since it’s announced closure, these midwives have reached out to hospitals and obstetricians all across the city looking for support, with no success.  Please help us to save the homebirth option in New York.

New Jersey community doula fellowship seeks would-be doulas

MZP2 Comments

Jill Wodnick alerted me to a new community doula program in New Jersey that is looking for folks who want to become doulas.

In exchange for three volunteer doula births for women in need in Hudson County, NJ, you get access to a free doula training (provided by DONA) and what sounds like some great supplemental trainings.

The Hudson Perinatal Doula Fellowship runs June 21-August 16, 2010. Applications are being accepted immediately on a rolling basis and can be downloaded at www.hudsonperinatal.org. The fellowship is open to 25 women who commit to the responsibilities and goals of program.

In addition to the DONA Doula Training dates, required by DONA International which are four full days, 8:30 am-6 pm June 21-24, 2010, the women accepted into the Doula Fellowship will further commit to complete all supplementary cross-training components of the program. Supplementary trainings will take place from June 28-August 16, 2010 for approximately 6 hours per week. Attendance is necessary and required.

In addition to the cross-training workshop attendance and the required reading materials, Fellows will commit to provide birth doula care to three expectant women who are clients of Hudson Perinatal Consortium, and attend those three births in Hudson County birthing facilities by December 1, 2010.

Interested? Download the PDF with all the details.

Access to homebirth in NYC put at risk by closing of St. Vincent’s hospital

MZP8 Comments

For a few months now, news has been circulating that St. Vincent’s, a Catholic hospital in NYC’s Lower East Side West Village was facing closure due to crippling debt.

It’s a Catholic hospital, which means no abortion procedures, no emergency contraception, and probably some other shitty anti-choice practices as well.

But it’s also one of the best hospitals for birth in NYC. Not only has St. Vincent’s been the back up hospital for most NYC home birth midwives, it’s also done a lot over the last year and a half to reduce c-sections and improve conditions. Doulas, midwives and VBACs were supported by the labor and delivery ward there.

Well now it seems the closing is definite.

It’s not just NYC that facing this kind of problem–in Miami, Jackson Memorial Hospital is also facing potential closure. It’s a hospital that serves many un and under-insured patients in the Miami area, and also has relationships with midwives.

For a movement that wants to get birth out of the hospital, you’d think we’d be happy to have hospitals closing. But we need hospitals as back-ups for home and birthing center births. Also why is it always the birth friendly hospitals and centers that get shut down? I wonder if not doing enough c-sections is bad for the profit margins.

Sigh.

If you want to take action in NYC, check out Choices in Childbirth for petitions and actions.

What organizations work with feminist mothers?

MZP3 Comments

I often get questions from readers via email, and figured that some of you might have the same questions. So I’m going to share them here if I think they might be useful.

A question from a soon to be mom last week:

Can [you] point me in the directions of any organizations that work with feminist mothers? Most of my activist work has been with victim/survivor rights of sexual assault, and now that I’m going to be a mother I am interested in working with other feminist mothers on important issues. If you have any advice I’d really appreciate it!

My answer:

Two that came to mind were the Big Push for Midwives and Moms Rising. The Big Push is national, and great if you are interested in midwifery advocacy. They are pushing legislation around the country to increase access to Certified Professional Midwives, who focus on out of hospital birth. They are working with coalitions around the country. http://www.thebigpushformidwives.org/

The other that came to mind was Moms Rising. I don’t know if they identify specifically as “feminist” but they seem to do cool work on a slew of mom-related things (like toxic toy campaigns for example). They are also national. http://www.momsrising.org/

Lovely Radical Doula readers, do you have any additions? Leave them in comments! And feel free to include orgs that work with parents more generally, and not just moms.