A family in the Dayton area is entangled in a criminal prosecution as a result of their homebirth.  Nine weeks ago, the Levier family welcomed the second child to the world at home with the assistance of a midwife.  He was born safe and sound.  A few hours later, they were a bit concerned about mom so they made the decision to call 911 just to be safe.

In Montgomery County, whenever 911 is called and a child is involved, the police show up as well.  The EMTs insisted that the newborn baby needed immediate medical attention (despite being perfectly happy and healthy) so mom and baby transported in the ambulance and baby was monitored for a while to confirm his good health.  Meanwhile the police further investigated, taking statements from Dad and the midwife, who identified herself as a doula.

Six weeks later, the Levier family was given a summons to appear in court regarding charges of child endangerment.  Both parents have been charged and arraigned.  The next legal step is in late September.  Their attorney hopes to have the charges dismissed, but in the meantime, they are facing the expenses of attorney’s fees for representing BOTH of them while dad’s work schedule has been drastically reduced for September.

The family has given me permission to share this news with you and I thought it important for these reasons:
1.To offer financial support as well as broader community support during this very diffuclt time.  We are asking  you to support the Levier family and homebirth in Ohio by making a donation today.  You can do this through OFSB’s paypal account.  Use the “donate” button at the bottom of this post, and please be sure to include your name and mailing address.  Also, if you would like to plan a fundraiser in your community for their support, contact Stephanie Beck-Borden and we’ll help get the word and out and share what resources we can.

2.  To let families know about another way the law may be used against them regarding homebirth.  Even if the charges are dismissed, it will have been 12+ weeks of anxiety, worry and expense for the Leviers.  Many have had the experience of being hassled by Child Protective Services, but this is a criminal proceeding!.  We have believed that while midwives are at risk for prosecution, families were not.  This is a distressing development  to say the least.

3.  To share another real life example of why Ohio Families for Safe Birth believes that having licensed midwives is important for both families and midwives.  If this family’s choice of care provider and location for birth were legally recognized, I don’t think they would be in this situation.

Thank you, in advance, for you support of the Levier family.  It is greatly appreciated.

The Big Push for Midwives needs YOU…

Help alert Congress to the Capitol Hill Issue Briefing This Thursday, May 21, focused on how out-of-hospital maternity care reduces costs and improves outcomes.

We need your help today! Please visit our PushAlert page right now to find out everything you need to know about reaching out to your elected officials about this important event!

http://www.thebigpushformidwives.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=enews.signup

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The deadline to include out-of-hospital maternity care in federal health care reform is just weeks away, so it’s urgent that we get our message to federal lawmakers ASAP!

Go to the links provided below and call or email your Senators and members of Congress today!

Help tell Congress about how access to out-of-hospital maternity care and Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs), who are specially trained to provide it, are a top priority in national health care reform!

Invite your elected officials and their staff to sponsor and attend the briefing at the Sewall-Belmont House at 144 Constitution Avenue, NE, between 8 and 9 a.m. on Thursday, May 21.

This is our first chance to show Congress and the media how much grassroots support there is out here in the states for including out-of-hospital maternity care and the services of CPMs in health care reform.

Download the issue briefing flyer for reference. Then call your congressional representative (look up you rep ) and your senators (find them here) and ask that they or a member of their staff attend this important issue briefing THIS THURSDAY. (If you have access to a fax machine, you can also fax the flyer to their office.)

Tuesday, May 5th, is International Midwives’ Day, and Ohio Families for Safe Birth and the Ohio Midwives Alliance are bringing the message home to our legislators: Now more than ever, OHIO needs midwives!

We are asking all Ohio midwifery supporters to come to the Mother of All Rallies at 9:30 a.m., Tuesday, May 5th, on the South Lawn of the Statehouse. The more people show up, the stronger the message to our legislators that Ohio families need midwives! So bring your family, your friends and neighbors!

Here is the Facebook page for the rally, and click here for directions and to RSVP so that we can arrange a face-to-face appointment with your representative — we’ll provide a handout, talking points, and a “lobbying buddy” if desired, so that you can let your rep know how important midwives are to you. We can also help connect you with others from your area to carpool — let us know what you need to make it to the rally next Tuesday. For more information please contact Kathy Skestos (Kathleen@skestos.com) or Audra Phillips (audralp@earthlink.net).

Hope to see you there!

It’s time to flood your papers with letters to the editor!

Here are links to Ohio papers  running yesterday’s AP story about the Big Push for Midwives:

Cincinnati Enquirer

Dayton Daily News

Canton Rep

Cleveland Plain Dealer

If you know of other Ohio papers running this story, or if you write a letter to the editor, please let us know! Email safebirthohio@gmail.com or soracolvin@gmail.com.

(Please email rather than leaving a comment. The Safe Birth blog is currently over-run with comment spam, and your comment will get buried in the thousands of pharmaceutical ads in the moderation queue.)

The Cincinnati Enquirer, Dayton Daily News, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and other local papers are running an article on The Big Push for Midwives and the many states fighting the legislative battle for recognition of Certified Professional Midwives. Look for it in your paper tomorrow or online tonight!

This is a fantastic opportunity to write a letter to the editor and keep this issue in the public eye in your community.

To be most effective, and most likely to be printed your letter needs to be BRIEF (250 words or less), CLEAR, and CONCISE. Choose one main point to address, use short sentences and short paragraphs for easy reading in a newspaper column. If your letter is too long, it may be edited down before printing: it’s much better to edit it yourself first so that you choose what gets cut!

A great starting point would be one or two short sentences on why midwifery care and home birth are important to you. Then choose ONE talking point, and stick to your message:

• the economic angle - health care costs are on everyone’s mind right now, and midwives are a great money-saver
• the safety angle - despite ACOG’s position - which is not evidence-based - research shows that home birth is a safe choice for healthy women with qualified midwives
• the access angle - Ohio families are having home births — over 1000 last year — but Ohio is one of the 25 states that does NOT recognize Certified Professional Midwives. If you are in Cincinnati, you could mention the closing of Midwives’ Care as indicative of our access problem

Things to avoid:

• spending too much time talking about your birth story - the “opposition” regularly stereotypes home birth families as putting experience over safety
• criticism of doctors and hospitals - we want to put out a positive message, not a negative one

Please send us a copy of your letter to the editor at safebirthohio@gmail.com - even if your paper doesn’t print it, we’ll put it on the Safe Birth Blog!

Ohio Families for Safe Birth aims to put a 2009 desk calendar, featuring home-born Ohio babies, on the desk of every State senator and House representative this month. As many calendars as possible will be sent directly from a constituent with a personal note asking the legislator to support licensure for Certified Professional Midwives. To “sponsor” a calendar for a legislator costs only $6 (postage included). Calendars are also available to purchase for yourself or to give as gifts.

For more details and to see inside the calendar, click here.

Ohio Families for Safe Birth is working on a project that will keep our mission and vision in front of our state representatives all through 2009!

We will produce a 2009 desk calendar featuring pictures of babies born at home in Ohio - one for every month. On the cover, the calendar will have the OFSB logo, the OFSB mission statement, and the message, “Ohio Families Deserve Access to Licensed Certified Professional Midwives.” Each month will feature a photograph of a child who was born at home in Ohio in that month, with a caption: (Example: “Isaiah C., born at home in Cincinnati, Ohio, December 2005, with the help of an unlicensed midwife.”)

These calendars will be available for sale for anyone who wants them. The cost will probably be about $6 each includng shipping. You (or your spouse) can put them on your office desk if you work in a place where others would see it and it could be a conversation starter. You can give one to your doctor or chiropractor or real estate agent (hey, he probably sends you a calendar!)

The main goal, however, will be to get one of these calendars on the desk of each of the 33 senators and 99 members of the house of representatives in Ohio by the end of this year. This is how we’ll do it:

Once the calendars are ready, you will have the opportunity to “sponsor” a calendar for your state senator or house representative. For $6, we will send you the calendar addressed and ready to mail (or hand-deliver, if you choose) to your Ohio state representative. We ask you to include a personalized holiday card (with a picture of your child or children who was born at home in Ohio, if applicable) asking your representative to support licensure for certified professional midwives. We will keep track of which legislators have already been given a calendar. If your district rep and senator are both already “taken” by someone else, you can still help make sure every legislator gets a calendar by “sponsoring” a calendar for a less active district, which will be sent from OFSB with a note from the board. (If you do this, please still send a holiday card to your own reps!) You may sponsor as many calendars as you like, but we should be able to get a calendar to everyone in the legislature without anyone having to pay for more than one.

How you can help:

We need beautiful, high-quality photographs to use for the calendar. These are the requirements:

• the photograph must be of a child who was born in Ohio with a direct-entry midwife (the year of birth is not so important, but the photograph should have been taken within the first year of the child’s life.)
• you, the parent must be able to sign a release form authorizing OFSB’s use of the photograph
• you must be willing to have the calendar include your child’s name (first names only are fine), place of birth, and birth date (month and year only is fine), and you must include that information with the photograph
• because these calendars are targeted at legislators and we don’t want to inadvertantly cause any offense, we will avoid any “right after birth” photos that might make more conservative legislators uncomfortable, and stick to just pictures of clothed babies. If you have more “birthy” photos that you want to share, please submit them for the Sunday Photo album.
• in order to have the calendar produced and ready to distribute this holiday season, please submit your photos by the 20th of October
• please send your submission electronically to soracolvin@gmail.com or by mail to Sora Colvin, 300 Cox St., Mason, OH 45040. In either case, include both your full-quality, high resolution image and the completed, signed photo release form (may be downloaded from the OFSB website: as a pdf or as a Microsoft Word document
• please forward this information to anyone you know who may be interested in participating in this calendar project

Because of the nature of the project, we may not be able to use every photograph that is submitted. Submitting a photograph does not guarantee it will be used in the calendar.

Thanks for your help in making this project a success!

Ever wanted to see your favorite recipes published?

Now’s your chance! Ohio Families for Safe Birth is putting together a cookbook to be printed in October and available for sale during the holiday season for only $10/copy. The cookbook will feature a collection of fabulous recipes from Ohio’s natural family living community. Recipes can be submitted in any of several categories including appetizers, beverages, soups, entrees, desserts, and more. One individual can submit multiple recipes, and there is no obligation to purchase any cookbooks if you do submit recipes.

Recipes do NOT need to be original to be included! The only recipes off-limits are those which are trademarked. They are the ones which include brand-name ingredients (e.g., Nestle Toll House Cookies).

Since we are a family-friendly group, how about giving us your recipes for yummy baby-licious foods and some great recipes for kids? Or what about your favorite, healthy recipes for pregnant mommas? Your contributions will make this cookbook a keeper!

First, download the recipe collection form in pdf format. Print out a copy for each recipe you wish to submit. Mail the completed forms to fundraising coordinator Amy Wakeling, 2030 Rolling Meadows Dr., Columbus, OH 43228, before September 20th.

Details about ordering completed cookbooks will be available at a later date. Funds raised from the cookbook sales will support the effort to license Certified Professional Midwives in Ohio.

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 Citizens for Midwifery blog links to a petition opposing the American Medical Association’s resolution. Here is the text of the petition:(click here to sign)

Whereas, women maintain the basic human rights of privacy, bodily integrity, and the rights to choose their care provider and place of birth;

Whereas, the practice of giving birth in hospitals attended by doctors has coincided with rapidly rising rates of cesarean section, induction, epidural, and surgically assisted vaginal birth;

Whereas, many of the physicians attending births in the hospital setting have contributed to the rise of the use of the aforementioned interventions, and have been unable or unwilling to change their training and practices to reverse these trends;

Whereas, the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ positions against home birth are not based on scientific evidence, but on the financial and professional concerns of the physicians that participate in their organizations;

Whereas, for the past century certain physicians have carried out campaigns to eradicate the practice of home birth to support their own professional gain;

Whereas, home birth with either a Certified Nurse Midwife or a Certified Professional Midwife in attendance is scientifically proven to have outcomes equal to or better than hospital birth with fewer interventions and higher levels of satisfaction;

Resolved, that the undersigned concerned citizens object to any legislation, either at the state or national level, which restricts a woman’s right to choose her place to give birth, including her right to choose to birth at home.

And here is the text of AMA’s “resolution 205″, supporting this statement from ACOG. The AMA has apparently now voted to remove the reference to Ricki Lake which was pounced on with delight by the media.

AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION HOUSE OF DELEGATES

Resolution: 205
(A-08)

Introduced by: American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Subject: Home Deliveries

Referred to: Reference Committee B
(Craig W. Anderson, MD, Chair)

Whereas, Twenty-one states currently license midwives to attend home births, all using the certified professional midwife (CPM) credential (CPM or “lay” midwives), not the certified midwives (CM) credential which both the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and American College of Nurse Midwives (ACNM) recognize ; and

Whereas, There has been much attention in the media by celebrities having home deliveries, with recent Today Show headings such as “Ricki Lake takes on baby birthing industry: Actress and former talk show host shares her at-home delivery in new film” ; and

Whereas, An apparently uncomplicated pregnancy or delivery can quickly become very complicated in the setting of maternal hemorrhage, shoulder dystocia, eclampsia or other obstetric emergencies, necessitating the need for rigorous standards, appropriate oversight of obstetric providers, and the availability of emergency care, for the health of both the mother and the baby during a delivery; therefore be it

RESOLVED, That our American Medical Association support the recent American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) statement that “the safest setting for labor, delivery, and the immediate post-partum period is in the hospital, or a birthing center within a hospital complex, that meets standards jointly outlined by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and ACOG, or in a freestanding birthing center that meets the standards of the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, The Joint Commission, or the American Association of Birth Centers” (New HOD Policy); and be it further

RESOLVED, That our AMA develop model legislation in support of the concept that the safest setting for labor, delivery, and the immediate post-partum period is in the hospital, or a birthing center within a hospital complex, that meets standards jointly outlined by the AAP and ACOG, or in a freestanding birthing center that meets the standards of the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, The Joint Commission, or the American Association of Birth Centers.” (Directive to Take Action)

Fiscal Note: Implement accordingly at estimated staff cost of $1,929.