My name is Amy Wakeling.  I am originally from Zanesville, Ohio, and moved to Columbus after we had our first child.  I am now the mother of 3 children, with a husband who is a truck driver, and 2 mastiffs!  I went through doula training about 2 yrs ago and about 6 months into that I attended my first out of hospital birth with a VBAC client of mine.  It was then that I realized midwifery was where I really belonged, and began an apprenticeship a little over a year ago. Seeing the challenges that my preceptor has had to face and hearing of many others, I decided to get involved in moving the Profession of Midwifery forward in the State of Ohio by helping to get licensure.  So I took the position of Fundraising for Ohio Families for Safe Birth!  Having had a background in sales in my pre-birthing career gives me a good base for working creatively to have fun and earn some funds at the same time!

Ohio Families for Safe Birth has grown and developed since its inception, and the transition to a board structure from the initial steering committee that guided OFSB through its first year is now complete. The first in-person board meeting took place recently in Columbus. The board draws its membership from all over the state and is made up primarily of consumers. The diverse backgrounds, skills, and experiences of OFSB’s board members creates a dynamic leadership team guided by the mission of supporting public health policy grounded in the Midwives’ Model of Care. In our initial CPM Licensure Initiative, OFSB is working closely with the Ohio Midwives’ Alliance as well as with the National Birth Policy Coalition’s Big Push for Midwives Campaign in pursuing licensure for Certified Professional Midwives in Ohio. Names and contact information for board members as well as their role within the organization may be found here. Starting tomorrow, the blog will help you “meet” a member of OFSB’s leadership team each week by featuring a short biography of each board member.

After almost four years of wondering, hoping, praying and sometimes believing the words of the OB who told her that her first son was too big to come out of her tiny pelvis, Krista welcomes her second son, born at home, with the same exact size head as her “too big” son.

The Sunday Photo Album is a regular feature of the Safe Birth Blog. If you would like to submit a picture, please email soracolvin@gmail.com.

The Coalition for Improving Maternity Services (CIMS) latest project, available only in New York until this week, has now launched nationwide. From their website:

“For years, consumers have enthusiastically shared online reviews of movies, restaurants, products and services, but readily available information about maternity care providers and birth settings was nearly unattainable-no longer. As part of the Transparency in Maternity Care Project, CIMS developed The Birth Survey as an online resource for new mothers to share their consumer reviews of doctors, midwives, hospitals, and birth centers, learn about the choices and birth experiences of others, and view data on hospital and birth center standard practices and intervention rates. The Birth Survey is now accessible throughout the United States.

“The Birth Survey is an on-going online consumer survey that asks women to provide feedback about their birth experiences. Women’s responses about specific providers and facilities will be available online to other women in their communities to help them decide where and with whom to birth. As they become available, the official facility-level intervention rates gathered from the state departments of health will be paired with the women’s survey responses to help families make their birthing decisions.”

If you’ve given birth in the past three years, help improve this resource by taking the survey here.

The American College of Nurse-Midwives’ response to the recently adopted American Medical Association’s resolutions regarding home birth and midwifery may be found here, and it is a delightful read. In particular, the thoroughly documented addenda to the letter is not to be missed.

In the past, medical lobbyists have frequently counted CNMs as allies in opposing state licensure of direct-entry midwives, and the AMA and ACOG have made much of their position that only certification from the ACNM should be considered adequate for midwifery practice. In light of this, the following paragraph from the addenda was of special significance (emphasis in the original):

“It should be noted that Resolution 205 erroneously states that ACNM has defined Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) as “traditional, independent (of the health care system), non-formally trained and community-based providers of care during pregnancy, childbirth and the post-natal period.” ACNM does not define CPMs in this or any other manner, and will not do so. CPMs have their own professional organizations to represent them and standards which address their education, certification and scope of practice. ACNM is in dialogue with these organizations with the goal of working toward the highest quality midwifery care for women and families in all settings.”

Thank you, ACNM!

Sleeping peacefully together after a safe home birth.

The Sunday Photo Album is a regular feature of the Safe Birth Blog. If you would like to submit a picture, please email soracolvin@gmail.com.

Thought for the month: A campaign is not the same as an organization. A campaign is formed with the goal of winning. A campaign must move forward every day, closer to the goal.

Introducing OFSB’s Monthly Action Alert!

Action Alerts are for everyone you know who supports Ohio families’ right to choose out-of-hospital, midwifery care. It’s for those who don’t have the time or inclination to be part of the behind-the-scenes strategizing, but DO want to know what simple steps they can take to help make midwifery licensure a reality in Ohio. Every month, we will send out an Action Alert email to everyone in our database. It will include instructions for a quick (ten minutes or less), easy action that everyone can do to help move our licensure campaign forward. We will also use our database to organize targeted action alerts when grassroots support must be mobilized in particular legislative districts.

To effectively lobby for a midwifery licensure bill, we first need to grow our grassroots network. Midwifery supporters in every legislative district in Ohio must join forces so that we can effectively coordinate our campaign for licensure.

Our first goal: 10,000 names in our database by the end of the year.

To kick off our database drive, the August Action Alert is 8 in 8/08 - we’re asking everyone to take ten minutes this month to invite at least eight people to support the CPM licensure campaign by signing up for OFSB Action Alerts. If each of them also signs up eight people, we’ll reach our goal in no time! There will be regular progress updates on the website and prizes for refering the most new supporters to our database.

It’s easy to sign up for OFSB Action Alerts. Just fill in the form on the OFSB website.

Please take a few minutes to think of at least eight people who might be willing to write a short letter to their legislator or make a brief phone call in support of a midwifery licensure bill. Remember that we need to recruit friends and family who support Ohio families’ continued access to out-of-hospital midwifery care even if they did not choose home birth themselves.

Consider using the text below in the letter to your eight friends and family members. The task will be too much for us unless we open our arms wide and invite in all those who care about us and care about choosing their own best care providers.

In Ohio, 1000 mothers a year choose to give birth at home. Families choose home birth for many reasons. Home birth with a trained midwife is a safe choice for healthy, low-risk pregnancies. A pregnant woman’s choice of place of birth and care provider is a fundamental right.

Currently, Ohio has no regulation for direct-entry, home birth midwives. Midwives have served Ohio families for years without regulation. But recently, due to pressure from physician groups, the legal climate has changed. Midwives providing home birth care in Ohio are being prosecuted and forced out of practice.

Ohio Families for Safe Birth wants to change that. We need to protect women’s access to out-of-hospital maternity care by licensing Certified Professional Midwives.

Join us and help make sure that every woman in Ohio who chooses home birth can have access to a licensed Certified Professional Midwife.

For more information: www.safebirthohio.org

The CPM Licensure Initiative is a statement that clarifies the mission and sums up the goals of Ohio Families for Safe Birth in advocating for a new state law licensing Certified Professional Midwives. This is the statement that groups or individuals are signing on to when they join the coalition.

Ohio Families for Safe Birth CPM Licensure Initiative:

Increasing Access to Out-of-Hospital Maternity Care Services through state regulation of Certified Professional Midwives

MISSION

 Ohio Families for Safe Birth (OFSB) is a consumer-driven effort to create a statewide coalition of families and professionals promoting legislation and policies grounded in the Midwives Model of Care which support families’ access to safe, appropriate, evidence-based care during pregnancy, labor, delivery and postpartum. Our purposes are:

• Supporting legislation that licenses Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) in Ohio;

• Raising awareness and support for families choosing an out-of-hospital birth as a safe, appropriate option;

• Supporting safe family and baby initiatives in all birth settings.

PREAMBLE

WHEREAS in 2005, Ohio Department of Public Health Vital Statistics documented 969 home births in Ohio;*

WHEREAS childbirth is a normal, healthy event for the majority of women, and includes important emotional and social components not usually addressed by hospital-based maternity care;

WHEREAS healthy women giving birth in hospitals are increasingly subjected to routine interventions, which may not be evidence-based or beneficial for their specific circumstances;

WHEREAS each woman and family is unique and deserves the maternity care provider and setting that best addresses individual needs and preferences;

WHEREAS the American Public Health Association supports efforts to increase access to out-of-hospital maternity care services and increase the range of quality maternity care choices available to consumers, through recognition that legally-regulated and nationally certified direct-entry midwives can serve clients desiring safe, planned, out-of-hospital maternity care services;¹

WHEREAS studies have demonstrated dramatically lower cesarean rates in out-of-hospital birth settings, an issue of great significance at a time when 29.3% of Ohio mothers are giving birth by major abdominal surgery with all of its attendant risks and the rising rate of cesarean sections nationwide is increasingly recognized as a serious public health problem;

WHEREAS Certified Professional Midwives are nationally certified providers of out-of-hospital maternity care services;

WHEREAS Certified Professional Midwives are licensed in 24 states;*

THEREFORE, we the undersigned members of Ohio Families for Safe Birth support and acknowledge the following:

The interest of the State of Ohio in the health care of its citizens;

The right of the State of Ohio to regulate licensed professionals;

The right of parents to receive qualified care from a well-trained professional;

The right of families to choose safe alternatives to hospital birth including free-standing birth centers and home birth;

The proven safety of direct-entry midwife-attended birth;

The right of parents to choose a direct-entry midwife to provide care during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum;

The right of direct-entry midwives to practice without unwarranted governmental harassment;

The Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) credential as a mechanism to ensure entry-level competence of direct-entry midwives;

The implementation of legislation providing for direct-entry midwife licensure, using the CPM credential as a basis for licensure requirements in Ohio.

* Statistics updated periodically

[1] American Public Health Association Position Paper 2001-3: Guidelines for Licensing and Regulating Birth Centers. APHA Public Policy Statements, 1948 to present, cumulative. Washington, D.C.

For those interested in learning more about the Certified Professional Midwife credential, a great starting point is this new Issue Brief (pdf file) jointly issued by the North American Registry of Midwives, the Midwifery Education Council, the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives, and the Midwives Alliance of North America.

“I loved my home birth despite all the concerns of my family, friends, strangers, etc.
We did a birthing tub, midwife, doula and lotus birthing. Two hours after delivery, I was basking in how easy birth was, and I wanted to do it again! My daughter is already asking for a little sister… I would choose homebirth again, 100%.”

The Sunday Photo Album is a regular feature of the Safe Birth Blog. If you would like to submit a picture, please email soracolvin@gmail.com.