The Cincinnati Inquirer has a story about the closing of a local birth center, Midwives Mourn Birth Center. Ohio requires licensed midwives to have physician backup, and the birth center's doctor was not longer able to obtain affordable liability insurance. (I suspect that the litigation rates, infant mortality rates, and so forth are less for the birth center births than for hospital births, but that's a story for another day).
Midwife Jackie Gruer accurately describes the situation which exists in many states that either do not license direct-enty midwives, or place onerous restriction on their practice, such as requring physician backup. She says, "it is not that people are not having home births anymore, it is just that (now) they are using unlicensed care providers."
Related Posts:
Don't Let the Sun Set on Texas Midwives
Unassisted Births
Midwives and the Law
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1 comment:
This saddens me deeply. While unlike many I am ambivalent about the efficacy or beneficience of state licensing of care providers, the loss of midwives is always an event worthy of mourning.
That said, I will always seek out a midwife for birth care, legal or no.
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