In a recent press release from The Big Push for Midwives, Susan Jenkins was quoted as follows: “Unfortunately, when it comes to legislation, money talks, and the AMA has a lot of money. Some even go so far as to say Big Medicine is the new Big Tobacco.”

Consumers and midwives aren’t the only ones concerned by this apt comparison. An increasing number of physicians are making their objections heard. They want the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Medical Association, and the public to know that the positions of their professional organizations do not represent either their own beliefs or the best interests of their patients. Many of these doctors have experience with home birth families and cordial working relationships with home birth midwives. They know first-hand that the AMA and ACOG’s representation of home birth and professional midwifery care does not match the reality.

Dr. Daniel Bowen, OB/GYN and founder of Ohio Physicians for Midwives (OPfM), writes, “As an obstetrician, I have been working with families who have chosen home birth since I started into private practice in 1993. The fears expressed in the latest ACOG position paper on home birth are unfounded and I can assure the medical community that these families are not a fringe element choosing that which is “fashionable, trendy or a cause celebre’.” This is an intelligent, thoughtful and well-read clientele. They are doctors, nurses, business executives, artists, musicians and, yes, even lawyers. Home birth families cannot be simply painted with one brush.”

California OB/GYN Stuart Fischbein has written a pointed letter to ACOG, detailing his concerns about their position statement and the resulting AMA resolution. With his kind permission, we’ve posted it on the Ohio Physicians for Midwives website, here. Those who claim that the AMA resolution isn’t really trying to outlaw home birth should consider Dr. Fischbein’s reminder of the consequences of ACOG’s change of position on VBAC. Thanks to ACOG, it is now near-impossible for a mother to have a VBAC in many U.S. hospitals – even without the “model legislation” that the AMA has promised to develop “in support of the concept” that all women should give birth in the hospital.

Denise Plunger is a family practice doctor in Florida. She’s also a board certified lactation consultant, the author of a parenting book, and a mother of three sons, the youngest of whom was a planned home breech birth. Her blog, Permission to Mother, has addressed the ACOG statement and she also recently shared her feelings about the AMA.

If you know a doctor who supports informed consent, evidence-based practice, and freedom of choice of birth place and care provider, why not ask him or her to join OPfM? As more doctors speak up, maybe Big Medicine will get the message: the public doesn’t need to be “protected” from home birth. Far from being a major cause of the critical problems in modern American maternity care, midwives are part of the solution.

Here is a story of another Ohio mother who is planning to leave the state to give birth. She writes, “we weighed our options and decided that it was important enough to us to have another homebirth with legally acceptable help.” She and her family are driving to a friend’s home in California to await labor and will then return to Ohio with their newborn.

A few months ago, one of the OFSB board members made a similar decision, although she did not travel across quite so many states. Like the family driving to California, she had recently moved from a state with licensed midwives to Ohio and returned there to give birth.

There is no way of knowing how many Ohio families give birth out of state because of the dearth of legal home birth care providers here, but with two confirmed cases so far this year, it is not unreasonable to assume that there have been and will be others. These are babies who would almost certainly have been born here in Ohio if there were licensed midwives to attend their births.

For a mother to leave her home and community, often for several weeks, in late pregnancy, is a stress on the family. For many families, it means a separation as the husband cannot take weeks off work. These mothers feel that giving birth with a legal, licensed midwife is a better, safer option for them than either a hospital birth or an underground home birth in their own community, bu to get it, they have to give up the physiological advantage of giving birth in their own home.