Midwifery Legal Update - Iowa, California

Certified Professional Midwife Melanie Moore of Iowa has been charged with violating Iowa Code Section 147.2, practicing medicine without a license, a class D felony. She has not been arrested, but a court appearance is scheduled for later this month.

Licensed Midwife and Nurse Practitioner Marcia McCulley of Simi Valley, California was arrested on March 14th at her office for practicing medicine without a license. According to eyewitness accounts, agents from the LA County Sheriff's office entered the premesis, where clients with babies were present, with guns drawn. Pursuant to a search warrant, patient charts were seized (anyone know the HIPPA ramifications?). Ms. McCulley seems to be in trouble with both the California state Nursing and Medical boards. You can read about it on the birth center's website.

Iowa Midwifery

The Des Moines Register reports a move to gain greater hospital privileges for Certified Nurse-Midwives:

[Clara] Dugan said hospitals are denying independent admitting privileges for advanced practice midwives. Hospitals, she said, require that independent nurse midwives practice dependently under the sponsorship of two physicians who agree to take responsibility for the midwife's actions.

"If you're required to have two supervisors, you have to do it their way," Dugan said.

Dr. Rebecca Shaw, medical director for Midwife Services of Iowa Health-Des Moines, said the hospital, which has three employed midwives, does require independent midwives to have two co-admitting physicians, who are able to provide for obstetrical emergencies and complications, because it "enhances patient safety and communication between midwives and physicians at the hospital and it improves care when communication is best."

A new advocacy group, Mothers And Others for Midwives, has been formed, and last night's meeting featured speakers such as Susan Hodges, president of the national advocacy group Citizens for Midwifery, and the famous midwife and author Ina May Gaskin.

**12/19/05 Edited to add this news link: Midwives Fight Hospital Rules

Life in a Small Town

We've just come back from several days spent in Monticello, Iowa (population 3,607). The day we arrived, we headed down to the public library to use the computer. All four computers were in use, said the librarian, and would be available in about an hour. She remembered us from our trip last June and our daily one-hour internet-addicted visits. We didn't give her our names or our phone number, but exactly one hour later the phone at my in-laws' house rang. It was the librarian; two computers had opened up and she would reserve them for us if we would come right down.

A similar thing happened this summer when we were visiting, and my son attended vacation bible school at one of the local churches. I was a bit concerned when registering him that I only had to provide my son's name and age and a parent's name. No address, no phone number, no liability release. However, on the second day of VBS, we got a call from the church saying that he had thrown up and maybe we should come get him.

Later this week, my husband went with his dad to make a delivery at an Amish farm in Kalona. They also bought some chickens and a couple dozen eggs (non-certified organic) and received a gift of a large bag of apples and an Angelfood cake, made from scratch by the farmer's wife. They don't have electricity, so it left us wondering how she bakes such beautiful cakes - wood stove? Propane oven? D. and the farmer, a 30-something father of seven, had an interesting conversation about midwives and homebirth and vaccinations and such. Like us, they birthed their firstborn in a hospital; and two midwives in their community assisted the rest. In Iowa, direct-entry midwifery is illegal, but even the most midwifery-hostile states tend to refrain from prosecuting midwives who work exclusively within religious communities. Some states, like California, have a specific religious exemption (art. 2063, Medical Practices Act) for traditional midwives. (Compare, however, the case of Judy Wilson who served both Amish and non-Amish populations in Pennsylvania. Her trial is scheduled for January).

Another neat thing we did was visit the Field of Dreams in Dyersville. We brought along a couple of plastic balls & bats and the boys (ages 4 1/2 and 2 1/2) took a couple of swings and ran the bases. We also walked out of the corn. The Field of Dreams is actually two separate entities - the Lansing family's Field of Dreams Movie Site, where the house used in the movie is located; and the Ameskamp family's Left and Center Field of Dreams, which owns 3rd base and left field. Of course, a feud ensued between the two property owners. Rumor has it that the two parties have patched things up; for instance we noticed the groundskeepers aerating the field on both sides of the property line. Reminders of the division remain, however; two separate roads run down to the site, and a sign on the Lansing farm side lets you know that the Left and Center site is run by "an out-of-state investment trust." For the record, while the Field of Dreams Movie Site has a bigger & closer parking lot, the Left and Center site has a much bigger souvenir shop (with drinks and snacks) and better displays of educational/historical information.

Travel Notes

My poor, neglected Mommy Blawg. By way of an excuse, I only get an hour of computer time a day.

I'm here at the Monticello, Iowa Public Library which I have blogged about here and here. My dear, sweet husband drove the 15 hours from Texas to Iowa last weekend so that I could escape the Dallas heat and have some help with the kids. I'm still fighting the so-called morning sickness, but at least I'm not quite so depressed while doing it. Out back of my in-laws house there is a field planted, in alternate years, with corn or soy beans (Round-up Ready, as I've been told). This year it's soy. There used to be a picturesque barn and silo on the hill, but it started to fall down and was bulldozed a couple years ago. Still a nice view. Today is the first day since we arrived that the temperature has been over 80 degrees. Nice.

Child endangerment for drinking?

Via Blogging Baby, comes this news out of Eastern Iowa, Pregnant woman charged with child endangerment for drinking. Let's see, she was not merely drinking but falling-down drunk, and was also charged with prostitution and public intoxication. The county attorney plans to request that child endangerment charges be dropped, since "under Iowa law, a fetus is not a person until it has been separated and been born from the mother and taken a breath independent of the mother, period."

Wonder if it will show up in the Express police blotter.

TRAVELOGUE: Iowa Day 2

Today we took the kids to the Monticello Public Library (see previous post on Sept. 9, 2003).  I showed my 3-year old the card catalogue and tried to explain what it was.  Little Champ enjoyed going up and down the stairs, and Big Champ used the public restroom in the library all by himself.

TRAVELOGUE

One of the more interesting reads in Monticello is the Monticello (Iowa) Express. Like many community newspapers, the Express prints a police blotter, where we can read, for example, that police were called out to 338 N. Pine Street at 6pm on August 26 to "remove bat from house" and again at 9:30pm to remove bat at 420 E. 3rd Street (sounds like a banner day for the bats). Note: these are the only entries for August 26th.

But the Express' Courthouse Brief page is far more detailed than that. The Express reports on the issuance of marriage licenses and the dissolution of marriages; lists all civil filings and final disposition of civil cases; all traffic tickets, arrests, charges, pleas, convictions, and traffic accidents to which the sheriff responded. This makes for some great reading.

Do Donald Robert Randalls' friends and neighbors feel differently about him since he was fined $30 for having a defective muffler? What on earth did Tom Allen Wagner of Delmar do to net himself a $49.50 fine for "camping area violation"? And poor Larry P. Brislawn struck a deer on Highway 151, doing about $3500 damage to his 2000 Nissan Altima. Just let his insurance company try to argue otherwise.

Reminds me of Matthew 10:26: "there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known." Would there be less crime if all of our misdeeds were printed for everyone to see?

TRAVELOGUE

Check out Iowa Farmer Today's Corn Cam and Dairy Cam.

Yesterday we visited the Wapsipinicon State Park in Animosa.

PERSONAL NOTE

I am making this entry from the public library in Monticello, Iowa (pop. 3,678). When we were here in July, there was only a single public access terminal with dial-up internet connection. Now there are four brand-spanking new computers with high-speed access. We are here in Monticello visiting the in-laws (a/k/a my children's grandparents).

My older son (2 1/2) has been in love with tractors ever since our July visit. In Monticello alone, there are 3 tractor dealerships - New Holland, John Deere, and Case/International Harvester. Not to mention various farming implements along the highway being used for farming purposes (unlike in Texas, where little actual farming is done). In my son's mind (and 2-year-old vocabulary), every piece of heavy equipment is now either a "tractor", a "combine", or a "bulldozer".