The midwifery option in maternity care. (Labor Assisting/Childbirth Education).

Editor's note: This is a news release from BirthNet, "a nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate the public about maternity care in order to improve it." This is in response to an article that is scheduled to be released in various local newspapers. BirthNet encourages using it, tailored to your needs, as a local press release or letter to the editor. BirthNet can be reached via Carolyn Keefe, [phone].

An article on the A.P. Newswire entitled "Prosecutions, Jailings Highlight Debate on Safety and Choice," by Martha Mendoza, examines the prosecution of unlicensed midwives and the statistically rare cases of injury during homebirth.

The criminal prosecution of a few midwives does provide sensational "news." Yet, those prosecutions can be avoided by developing regulations that will provide consumers access to safe, effective out-of-hospital maternity care and will provide all midwives with the disciplinary process afforded to other licensed professionals, avoiding costly criminal cases.

Women Want the Midwifery Model of Care

Women and families want safe, respectful, woman-centered maternity care--the kind of care provided by midwives who practice the Midwives Model of Care. This includes midwives with the nationally recognized credential of CPM--Certified Professional Midwife. Consumers and midwives in many states have worked to change laws and regulations to ensure access to all types of midwives in all birth settings.

Are Hospitals Safe for Healthy Mothers and Babies?

Much attention has been paid over the last few years to the dangers that hospitals pose to patients in general, whether from medical mistakes, risks of infection, or the nursing shortage. One estimate puts the death of infants in 2000 from infections acquired in hospitals alone at over 2,100. Given the potential for errors, infections, and unnecessary interventions associated with hospital birth, why should healthy women be required to put themselves or their babies at risk by entering hospitals when they are not sick?

What Does the U.S. Have to Show for its High Tech Approach to Birth?

Despite a hospital birth rate of 99 percent, virtually all of which include technological interventions of some sort, the United States has one of the worst infant mortality rates in the developed world--ranking twenty-seventh, just behind Cuba. Without exception, developed countries that have lower infant mortality rates than the U.S. also have higher out-of-hospital birth rates, more midwife-attended births, and fewer interventions.