These last few weeks have been a blur of wonderfulness. I know I’ve hinted at the local birth activism I’ve been participating in, but I want to share where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing.
I usually fall asleep dreaming up blog posts and now I fall asleep dreaming of how social media can change New York laws. I miss you though. I know energy ebbs and flows and having a place to put my Aries moon fire has felt so good this past month.
I used to dream of working in politics. In fact, I almost went to college in DC to follow that dream, but somewhere along the way I became discouraged by politics. I dislike the two party system and it just seems like a lot of bureaucracy that takes forever to go nowhere.
I sort of fell into this local politics thing by accident. I’ve been volunteering with Birthnet for the past two years helping to organize community events and such, but some recent events has pushed us into the forefront of organizing a statewide push for the Midwifery Modernization Act. The midwives in our state are prohibited from practicing independently without a practice agreement from a doctor. The practice agreement is–in a nutshell a permission slip. However, the doctors won’t sign them for a number of reasons. They are afraid of litigation repercussions (rightfully so) and let’s not forget that they are direct competitors of midwives. In what other profession do you need a permission slip signed from your competitor? Also, most doctors practice in groups and if one doctor in the group does not want to sign, none of them can. The icing on the cake? Now insurance companies are stepping in and telling doctors they cannot sign if they want coverage. The few doctors who were willing to sign now have their hands tied behind their back.
This is a real tragedy for New York State. For the most part, we are a rural area. Most women do not have access to doctors and in the past it was midwives who would set up in rural areas to provide safe and healthy prenatal care. Now they have been forced to leave the state leaving many women and families without any care at all.
Also, it makes no sense that New York will train midwives and certify midwives, but then inhibit them from practicing. The legislation is asking to remove the practice agreement from the law allowing midwives to set up independent practices in New York State.
(Note: a practice agreement is not an agreement to consult or collaborate with a doctor. Midwives work with doctors all the time and one of local midwives just told us that she has never had a doctor refuse to answer a question or collaborate with her. The doctors aren’t refusing to work with midwives, they just aren’t willing or able to sign the practice agreement.)
We realized that our community is a special place in New York. We have access to an amazing group of pro-midwife consumers who have the ability to unite and actually make this legislation a reality. We’ve launched a statewide movement and I’ve been building the website to be the home base. Our legislators in Albany told NYSALM (New York State Alliance of Midwives) that they need to hear from consumers– so here we are. We’re growing a tribe and taking action with the help of modern social media. We’ve launched a photography project that is just going to knock everyone’s socks off. I’m so fired up and inspired and thrilled about it all.
I invite you all to check out what I’ve been working on and if you happen to live in New York, please get involved. If you have any relatives or friends who live in New York State please pass along the link: Free Our Midwives
A question for you: What are your state midwifery laws? If midwifery is legal do midwives need a written practice agreement?
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this is fantastic hillary!
i’m going to pass this along to everyone in my birth circle. we just went through something similar here in rhode island and we were successful in getting the regulations changed so midwives no longer need a practice agreement, which opened the door (finally!!!) to fully legal and accessible homebirth.
love what you are doing and i can’t wait to see all the photographs!!!
~erin
Oh Erin, that is so uplifting to hear! I would love to have some contacts and ask what people felt made the difference. What they would do differently or more of type of thing.
Feel free to pass along our info and if you have anyone in mind I could talk to please hook me up!
Good luck! I hope this law sets a precedent for many others that need changing, both in NY and around the country.
TheOrganicSister´s last blog ..He did it!
Hold on…I need a second to recover from the cuteness of that photo:)….And now, good for you mama!!! We face the same issues in Michigan, and in my town just lost the last of our midwives last year (doctor’s office canned them– they don’t make as much but were in such high demand). Insane. Now, for a woman around here to have a midwife, she must birth at home and hope for the best– because the nearest practicing midwife for homebirth is almost two hours away (without the snow!). It is nothing short of a tragedy. Truly.
I know isn’t that cute! We are trying to collect 1000 similar photos of children and mamas who have received the care of a midwife.
You know, the more I’m learning about how common these barriers are, the more I am just shocked! I feel like we must live in the dark ages.
I guess I had my head in the sand in NH and MA where I felt I had abundant access to diverse array of independent midwives.
I am lucky to live in Washington State, and from my perspective (as a client of midwifery care rather than as a midwife), the laws are pretty good. I don’t think the laws anywhere are fabulous, but here LM (licensed midwives) can practice independently of hospitals and attend births at home or at free-standing birth centers. Seven to ten years ago, they even had privileges at local hospitals. That, however, has changed in the litigious environment in which we live.
There is also only one LM in all of Seattle who will attend home VBACs… Even though most midwives disagree with the recommendation of repeat c-sections and believe that home VBAC can be safe, most won’t take on women wanting to do VBAC because of liability issues.
CNMs here are almost all affiliated with a hospital (i.e., they don’t do home births).
Both of my boys were born at home with LMs. Do you need pictures? :) Or are you only looking for NY babies?
I am loving the work you’re doing — thanks so much for sharing it with us!