Healthcare Providers and Social Media

The American Medical Association has issued a new policy on the use of social media (AMA Issues New Policy To Guide Physicians’ Use of Social Media on the Health Care Law Blog). The new policy "aims at helping physicians to maintain a positive online presence and preserve the integrity of the patient-physician relationship."

Do you think that the AMA guidelines would be helpful for other types of healthcare providers, such as midwives, doulas, chiropractors, and so on? Although these types of providers often have a much closer, personal relationship with their clients than do medical doctors, it is always a good idea to protect client's privacy (whether or not the provider is a HIPAA-covered entity) and to separate personal and professional online content.

Informed Consent

Midwife Thinking sums up informed consent, according to Australian law.

Midwives in Australia

Private Midwife Melissa Maimann explains the current legal situation in Australia in Homebirth is not illegal!

Midwifery Legal/Legislative Updates

I do mean to post these more often...

In Florida, an appeals court confirmed the conviction of Tanya and Linda McGlade for practicing midwifery without a license. The two were charged after the 2004 childbirth death of a family member. Both women have been sentenced to a year in prison, but had been released pending appeal ("Two women lose appeals in midwifery convictions").

North Carolina's effort to pass licensing legislation is reportedly dead ("Midwife Supporters Will Push Again Next Session").

Legal warning over umbilical cord blood collection

Interesting article about cord blood collection in the UK - Legal warning over umbilical cord blood collection. The article implies that is illegal to collect cord blood without a license; however, a lack of uniformity among hospital policies, with some hospitals not allowing collection, leads some parents to take matters into their own hands:

The Human Tissue Authority (HTA) has written to more than 150 organisations following concerns that parents, including new fathers, are collecting the blood themselves using kits delivered to their homes.

Some midwives have said they are being put under pressure to collect the blood illegally and there are fears this could be compromising patient care.

The Royal College of Midwives supports the HTA's actions, saying, "[t]he time during the birth when cord blood is collected is one of the riskiest times, in terms of safety. Therefore, it is essential that midwives are able to concentrate on the birth and are not put under pressure to carry out unregulated and unlawful cord blood collections."

Is VBAC illegal? Is homebirth illegal?

The VBAC Facts blog has a great explanation of the legalities of VBACs and homebirth. To summarize, VBAC is legal everywhere in the US. Homebirth (whether VBAC or not) is legal everywhere in the US. The only legal restrictions are placed on providers, what they may do and where they may do it.

You may also be interested in my previous blog post, Is it legal for Florida midwives to do VBACs?

Oh, and if you haven't read it yet, don't miss Time magazine's article The Trouble With Repeat Cesarians in conjunction with ICAN's recently-released report on the organization's hospital survey. I especially liked this quote from the Time article:

But while many obstetricians say fewer patients are requesting VBACs, others counter that the medical profession has been too discouraging of them. Dr. Stuart Fischbein, an ob-gyn whose Camarillo, Calif., hospital won't allow the procedure, is concerned that women are getting "skewed" information about the risks of a VBAC "that leads them down the path that the doctor or hospital wants them to follow, as opposed to medical information that helps them make the best decision." According to a nationwide survey by Childbirth Connection, a 91-year-old maternal-care advocacy group based in New York City, 57% of C-section veterans who gave birth in 2005 were interested in a VBAC but were denied the option of having one.

Hm. Why give patients information about a "procedure" that is not offered by you or allowed by your hospital?

Midwifery Care in Canada

Mazely writes about A Midwife Crisis: Maternity Care in Canada:

The practice of midwifery in Canada is regulated by provincial and territorial authorities. Midwives can only legally practice their profession if they are registered with these authorities, but only seven provinces and territories have regulatory systems in place. This means that midwifery is essentially illegal in the rest of Canada. Further compounding the problem is the fact that even where midwifery is legal, it isn’t always funded or covered by health care. A two-tier system of care has been established, where the standard of maternal care changes depending on your geographic location. Midwives are only available to some women, in some parts of the country, and only some of those women can afford their services.

In addition to giving a brief history of midwifery in Canada, Mazley links to the Canadian Midwifery Regulators Consortium's chart of the legal status of midwives in Canadian territories and provinces.

FDA raids Miami birth center; Placentas, medical records confiscated

On Christmas Eve, federal, state, and local authorities executed a search warrant on the Miami Maternity Center following a 10-month joint investigation by the Florida Department of Health, the US Food and Drug Administration, and Miami Dade Police Department’s Medical Crimes Unit. Birth center staff were allegedly dehydrating and encapsulating placentas in a process that resulted in placentas from various birth mothers becoming commingled. Midwife Shari Daniels denies the allegations, according to news reports:

"They charged in here as if I were making crack cocaine," Daniels complained. "They could have sent one person and we should have shown them everything." She suggested that the raid might have been caused by angry obstetricians, who charge several times what she does to deliver a baby. "The local docs are screaming their heads off.''

Jodi Selander, owner of Placenta Benefits, a placenta encapsulation service, writes on her blog:

I am (obviously) a huge proponent of placenta encapsulation. However, I can not in any way condone this type of activity. I created the Training & Certification program specifically to avoid these types of situations.

As an advocate for the movement toward legitimizing the use of placenta for its natural purpose, this story is absolutely outrageous. People who operate with such a total lack of regard for the gravity of the process and who apparently do not realize that the FDA is not on our side, set the movement back and make it harder for the rest of us who are being safe and working toward legitimacy.

Please, people - don’t think that you can find free instructions for drying placentas on the internet and just set up shop. This is serious. You need to comply with government standards and regulations. Get some training. Work with us. Together we can do it. But not when people like this are operating out there.

White Collar Crime News blogger Jef Henninger has a lawyer's take on the situation:

I hate to see good people get caught up in criminal cases when the entire problem could have been easily avoided if a good attorney got in there and essentially performed an audit on the entire business....I don’t know enough about the facts of this case to really figure out what the situation is here, but I see no indication that anyone was harmed. At the most, it seems like they had sloppy business practices while they performed a service that the people wanted; but the FDA does not agree with. This seems like it would be a good case for a lawyer to argue that this is a technical violation of civil law and not a criminal violation as no one was actually harmed.

And, as I have mentioned before, I would love to have an expert's opinion about the HIPAA implications of confiscation of medical records. What happens to a person's right to his or her own medical records when those records become evidence? I assume that HIPAA exempts healthcare providers from liability when complying with a legitimate court order or other legal process, but do the police, prosecutors, and court personnel have the same duty as healthcare providers do to keep protected health information confidential? What if the health of a woman and her baby are compromised because her prenatal records are unavailable? Is there liability? Is anyone but me asking these questions?


Update 1/08/2008: For more information and continuing updates, please visit The Placenta Blog.

Midwife Sued

Midwife in the Clouds discusses being sued here and here - for allegedly misrepresenting the fact that she was an "in-network" provider:

Obstetrics in America is filled with stories of birth workers who can no longer have loving relationships with their patients because they are scared to death of lawsuits. The only people who suffer from these lawsuits are the mothers and babies because it becomes harder and harder to get the care you want when your caregiver is scared or limited by malpractice insurance.

Thankfully, this case was not about my ability as a midwife or my care of the mother and baby but a question of contracts, insurance, and money. I am so grateful to have learned what I did without anyone being seriously hurt - my heart goes out to midwives who are charged with an unwarrented medical lawsuit.

Birth Center Grand Opening - Cleburne, Texas

If you live near the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex - particularly the southwesternmost portion - you might want to check out the newest birth center:

We are thrilled to announce the Grand Opening Celebration of Edenway's Cleburne Birthing Center on Saturday, December 6, 2008 from 11am to 4 pm at 805 N Main, Cleburne, Texas 76033. Come see how we can help you achieve the birth you desire. Meet our staff! Tour our facility! Bring the whole family for FREE refreshments! FREE pregnancy testing! FREE chair massages! Door prizes! Kids' jump house! Free info about natural childbirth, waterbirth, fertility health, baby slings, massage, herbs, birth photography, and chiropractic care in pregnancy… This will be a fun event for the entire family! Visit us at www.cleburnebirthingcenter.com or call 817-558-BABY for more information.

Links for Midwives and others

Thanks to Citizens for Midwifery for posting a link to USPharmD.com's list of 100+ Essential Online Resources for Midwives.

Baby, You're Home

The New York Times published a piece on homebirth this week ("Baby, You're Home") which is getting good reviews in my normal-birth circles, though it was inexplicably placed in the "Home & Garden" section of the paper. It seems that while homebirths are up all over the country, the biggest surge seems to be in New York, according to local midwives and sellers of birth tubs. according to the article, this may be due, in part, to the impact of last year's documentary The Business of Being Born, which was filmed in New York City. Actual statistics on this won't be available for several more years, though.

Midwives who Blog

Infomidwife discusses legal considerations for Australian midwife-bloggers in Cyber Talk and Midwives.

Midwifery and the Law

This week's Midwifery Today E-news is on the topic of Midwifery and the Law.

Some news, and a break

Hello, faithful readers.

I'm going to be taking an extended blogging break - probably 4-6 weeks - and then I will be back with an announcement and a renewed commitment to my blogs. Until then, here are a couple headlines that have popped up recently:

An Arkansas court of appeals says that shackling prisoners during labor is not unconstitutional.

After a six-year absence, nurse-midwives are returning to Austin hospitals.

Midwife-signed birth certificates along the Texas-Mexico border questioned.

If you haven't heard, the AMA has joined ACOG in opposing homebirths. For more on this flap, check out these responses from ICAN, MANA (pdf), Citizens for Midwifery, and Ricki Lake, Jennifer Block & Abby Epstein on the HuffintonPost. Feel free to leave a link to your favorite blog post in the comments.

Midwifery Legal News - Pennsylvania

The big news this week is that a Pennsylvania appeals court has overturned the State Board of Medicine's decision against Diane Goslin, who was charged with practicing medicine without a license and practicing midwifery without a license. In the decision, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania made the crucial distinction between Midwifery and Nurse-midwifery:

Thus, section 1 of the 1929 Law regulates, by the issuance of certificates, persons who are not registered nurses with nurse-midwife licenses, but who make a practice of attending women in childbirth gratuitously or for hire.11

Given the different purposes of the two statutes, we conclude that the nurse-midwife charges against Goslin under the 1985 Act did not give Goslin adequate notice to defend against the midwife offenses described in the 1929 Law.12

11 We recognize that statutes in pari materia shall be construed together, if possible, as one statute. Section 1932(b) of the Statutory Construction Act of 1972, 1 Pa. C.S. §1932(b). However, the 1985 Act and the 1929 Law do not relate to the same class of persons. Although both relate to midwifery, the 1985 Act relates to the licensing of registered nurses as nurse-midwives and the 1929 Law relates to the granting of certificates to other persons who attend women in childbirth.

12 Moreover, we note that, although the Board concluded that Goslin violated section 1 of the 1929 Law by holding herself out to the public as a midwife, section 1 does not make such conduct unlawful. It is section 5 of the 1929 Law that prohibits a person from “advertising herself as a midwife” without a certificate or a license. 63 P.S. §175.

The ruling apparently means that Ms. Goslin will be able to resume attending births.

Links:
Text of the decision (pdf)
Story from the Philadelphia Inquirer
SaveHomebirth.com
Midwives Alliance of Pennsylvania
PA Pundits has commentary here and here.
Commentary and video from Independent Childbirth.

US Air Force Pays Record Settlement for Injured Baby

U.S. Air Force Pays Record Amount for Baby Injured in Government Hospital

What is the take-away here? That VBACs are dangerous? That VBACs shouldn't be augmented with Pitocin? Or something else?

Blawg Review #158

Welcome to Blawg Review #158! Today is International Midwives' Day (sometimes called "International Day of the Midwife"), when traditionally I remind my readers to call, write, or email their midwives and thank them. Accordingly, the theme of today's Blawg Review is "Midwives and the Law":

But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive... Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty. And so it was, because the midwives feared God, that He provided households for them.
-Exodus 1: 17, 21 (NKJV)

For those of you who are wondering, "What's a Midwife? Are they still around?", I would invite you to visit the Wikipedia on the subject before reading any further. Also, for a look at modern, urban midwifery, rent or buy Ricki Lake's (yes, that Ricki Lake's) movie The Business of Being Born. By the way, Ms. Lake is scheduled to discuss her movie today on The View.

Why Does the World Need Midwives?, you may well ask. In most industrialized countries in the world, midwives attend 70% to 80% of all births and are the primary providers of maternity care. The U.S., where hospital- and home-based midwives attend less than 8% of all births (and despite spending the most per-capita on health care), ranks near the bottom of developed countries in terms of infant and maternal mortality rates.

A few quick definitions. There exists in the U.S. a class of midwives which is unique to this country, the Certified Nurse-Midwife (CNM). In every state, CNMs are licensed to practice with varying degrees of autonomy. CNMs have their own legal issues; however, they are not usually subject to being arrested, sued, or otherwise prosecuted merely for practicing midwifery, and I will not deal with those issues today.

Rather, when I use the term "midwife", I am referring to direct-entry midwives (DEMs); those who have completed a course of study and an apprenticeship in midwifery, but who are not also nurses; and who are licensed by the North American Registry of Midwives as Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs), and/or licensed under a particular state's regulatory requirements for direct-entry midwives (variously termed "Licensed Midwife", "Certified Midwife", and so forth). They are almost never hospital-based.

The term "lay midwife" is, increasingly, only used for uncertified or unlicensed midwives who are educated through informal routes. They may also be called "traditional birth attendants", "community midwives", "traditional midwives", etc.

Although planned homebirths with CPMs have been shown to be just as safe (with fewer complications) as hospital births, only 22 states specifically authorize the practice of direct-entry midwifery. Ten states prohibit the practice of midwifery outright (in Missouri it is a felony), while in the remaining states the status is a little less clear:

[M]any midwives have long operated under the assumption that states without a [Direct Entry Midwifery] statute are "alegal," a word that doesn't officially exist but has been understood to mean neither authorized nor forbidden by law, or "unregulated." But the problem with this concept, as more midwives are beginning to realize, is that the practice of midwifery - that is, the act of attending women in childbirth - is defined and regulated in all fifty states, through the medical and/or nursing practice acts, all of which contain broadly worded language that defines various acts associated with the practice of midwifery as either medicine or nursing.

-Katherine Prown, Ph.D., "Understanding the Legal Status of Direct-Entry Midwives: an Introduction" , From Calling to Courtroom

Currently, a midwife can be licensed & regulated in one state, but in a neighboring state with the exact same credentials she is subject to charges ranging from practicing medicine, nursing, or nurse-midwifery without a license, to manslaughter, child endangerment, and possession or use of controlled substances. Moreover, it is not always clear what the legal status of midwifery in a state is; some states, such as Pennsylvania, in which the practice of midwifery was long considered "legal", have suddenly begun to prosecute midwives. Many direct-entry midwives are under the mistaken impression that they are practicing legally, when they are in fact at risk.

And you thought that multijurisdictional practice of law issues were complicated.

I was going to include a list of midwifery-related legal resources, but it was getting a bit long, so I've published it as a separate post.

One more quote and then on to "This Week in the Blawgosphere":

We who live in the United States are fully aware how different our country is from most others when it comes to midwifery and the way the state looks at childbirth. If we try to list every variety of midwife that has come into existence during the last half-century, we have to write a very long sentence with lots of adjectives and commas. We lead the world in the number of criminal trials for the practice of midwifery or the practice of medicine, or even manslaughter or second-degree murder charges brought against unlicensed midwives. In this dubious sweepstakes, we have the company of our neighbor to the north, Canada, which got itself into a similar societal mess a century ago by neglecting to create a way for midwives to continue to exist by following the example of the rest of the industrialized world.

— Ina May Gaskin, "Unity: An Elusive but Necessary Goal for US Midwives and Their Advocates," Midwifery Today Issue 64.

Blogging and Blawging

Midwives tend to be a little (ok, a lot) less tech-savvy than, say, lawyers; although I've noticed the younger generation is changing that somewhat. On the sidebar of The Baby Blawg, you will find a list of "birth biz blogs", many of them written by midwives. There's some great stuff there. Besides me, the only blogs I can think of right now that write specifically about midwifery legal issues are Midwifery World, Jennifer Block (Pushed Birth), and possibly the Citizens for Midwifery blog.

Real Lawyers Have Blogs, but does your employer have a Law firm blog policy?

Bag and Baggage's Denise M. Howell discusses Blawgs In (Magazine) Space.

Nick Holmes of Binary Law explains what makes a good blawg; Anne Reed of Deliberations suggests that Alltop offers a great way to find them (Finding Good Blogs), and Scott Greenfield concurs, but thinks that

It also is going to give an odd impression to the person who doesn't know much about the blawgosphere, since there doesn't seem to be any particular rhyme or reason to why blawgs are listed in any particular order . . . . This page makes no distinction for the looker who doesn't know what he's looking at.

There seemed to be a great deal of discussion regarding the creation of law.alltop.com ("Blawgs Get Kawasakied"), including at Jim Calloway's Law Practice Tips Blog, Brett Trout's BlawgIT, and Sheryl Sisk Schelin's The Inspired Solo; but NY Personal Injury Lawyer Eric Turkewitz feels Personal Injury blogs were Dissed Again.


Coming and Going

Check out this new blog, The Legal Antiquarian. And say goodbye to Decision of the Day's Robert Loblaw who is calling it quits and hanging up his keyboard.


Social Media

John Phillips presents Young Teachers Gone Wild posted at The Word On Employment Law. And learn about Social Media's Impact on Health Care at Bob Coffield's Health Care Law Blog.

Would you turn down a job offer from a firm that did not allow you to access social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace? No Facebook? No thanks!


Searches and Seizures

In another turn, [Midwife Marcia Kay McCulley] was arrested in March at her birthing center in front of two couples and their babies. A witness said about a half-dozen Medical Board officers came to the center, and one of them had his gun drawn.

"It seemed like the kind of conduct you would use on a drug house or on a dangerous criminal," said Jett Whitworth, who was in the waiting room with his wife and their 6-day-old girl.

- "Midwife disputes health allegations", Ventura County Star, May 12, 2007

From The Faculty Lounge, Dan Filler informs us Canada Supreme Court Nixes Suspicionless Dog Sniffs. And EFF's Jennifer Granick helps out with Protecting Yourself From Suspicionless Searches While Traveling.


Hiring a Lawyer

From Calling to Courtroom: A Survival Guide For Midwives has a wonderful chapter entitled Looking For a Lawyer (And Why You Should Do it Sooner, Not Later).

Austin Criminal Defense Lawyer Jamie Spencer presents Hiring a Jerk to be Your Lawyer. And watch out - Eliot Spitzer Enters Private Practice.

After my first son was born, and until about six months after my second was born, I practiced law from home, as did my husband for a time. Do you care if your lawyer has an office? Susan Cartier Liebel of Build a Solo Practice, LLC, writes When Going Home To Go To Work Benefits The Client.


Legal Drafting

Mark Liberman of Language Log parses Closer, my ex, of you; Ken Adams discusses "Survival" Provisions; and Conglomerate's Christine Hurt asks Who Wants in on the Nineteenth Edition of the Bluebook?


Trial Preparation

Tom O'Connor of Law Technology News claims Bates Stamps' Days May Be Numbered. Lean and Mean blogger Stewart Weltman makes easy work of taking expert depositions. South Carolina Trial Law Blog's guest blogger Brian Ford gives advice on Using Multi-Media at Trial.


Trials and Class Actions

Occasionally I will hear rumors of an effort by midwives and midwifery consumers to bring a class action suit against insurance companies for denying coverage of their services; or aginst someone (obstetricians?) for restraint of trade. The Class Action Blawg provides a most helpful Partial Glossary of Representative Actions and Terms.

Drug and Device Law has a long but worth-it post ("New Decisions Raise Old Issues") that refers to Bendectin which, as a three-time HG sufferer, I sure wish was still available.


Judges & Juries

Picking a Jury? Anne Reed writes "Your Honor, I Move To Strike Your Mother For Cause".

JD Hull opposes the elected judiciary at What About Paris? (a/k/a "What About Clients?")

Law Ingenue loved her Civil Procedure professor (Law Ingenue: Civil Procedure... Or Is It?) and so did I. In fact, Prof. Mayo not only blogs on health law, but writes poetry columns.

Speaking of poetry, and because no Blawg Review is complete without either Limerick or Haiku, recovering lawyer Madeleine Begun Kane (Mad Kane's Humor Blog) presents Ode To A Grudge-Holding Judge:

There once was a federal judge
Who was famous for holding a grudge.
But his clerk found a way
To get him to say,
“I forgive you.”
She bribed him with fudge.

Perhaps this Oklahoma judge needed some fudge as well - Publish or Perish: Lawyer Sanctioned With Order to Write Bar Journal Article by Alan Childressat at Legal Profession Blog:

She ordered the offending attorney "to submit to the Oklahoma Bar Journal for publication an article pertaining to civility and professionalism as they relate to adversary proceedings." He has six months to write it.

Consider yourself warned.


Family Law

Midwives' conferences often contain one session on family law basics. Usually these are conducted by other midwives; but sounds like a good marketing opportunity to me.

There was lots of blogging this week on the raid on the Texas FLDS compound. My major interest in the case was the allegation that nursing babies were being separated from their mothers.

Austin blogger Scott Henson (Grits for Breakfast) says More law blawggers need to weigh in on West Texas polygamy case. Robert J. Ambrogi talks about An Army of Lawyers in West Texas. Eugene Volokh had several posts concerning facets of the case arising from the raid on the FLDS' Texas compound. Audree Heath at World on the Web addresses Polygamy and religious rights. And J. Craig Williams (May It Please the Court) pens Who's On First? The Polygamous Mess In A Texas Courtroom.

Speaking of J. Craig Williams, my blogging about Placentophagy does not hold a candle to his Blood Sausage post.


Birth Certificates, Social Security, and Taxes. Oh My.

One issue that parents living in, and midwives practicing in, "illegal" states face is, how to file for a birth certificate. Should a midwife sign the birth certificate, or will this bring her to the attention of local authorities? And if she doesn't, what additional documentation must the parents provide in order to register the birth?

Without a birth certificate, you cannot get a social security card, a driver's license, or pretty much any job for which you are not paid in cash. Although I have known parents who delayed obtaining social security numbers for their children, without one you cannot claim them as dependents on your tax return (unless you are Amish, by the way. Hint, hint.). I recently filed an amended tax return because I neglected to include my most recent tax deduction child one year, and discovered that, while my children may be priceless to me, to the IRS they are worth $1000 per year. Each.

Why is My Rebate So Small? Tax Girl's got the lowdown on The Incredible Shrinking Tax Rebate. Nick Cowen asks Should Inheritance Tax Be Defended? (Civitas Blog), and Pundit Mom wants to see your I.D.


Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom?

Having given birth to three babies, I sometimes think about having "a little work done". But then I realize that I am a mother, and my body looks like the body of a mother, and to try to look as if I have not had three babies would be an insult to mothers everywhere. Besides, how would I explain the surgery to my children without Encouraging Vanity and Misogyny? (Frank Pasquale of Concurring Opinions). And though I cringe to mention it, my body is not Just like open-source software! (Ann Bartow, Feminist Law Professors).

On that topic, among birth-related (non-legal) blogs, Birth Rape (see also More Than a Traumatic Birth) is being widely discussed. The legal implications are obvious - I have heard stories of women, even in my own community, who have been given unwanted (and unconsented-to) episiotomies, even while kicking and screaming "No!". Unfortunately, attorneys (prosecutors or plaintiff's) seem reluctant to pursue litigation. But I wish more lawyers would join this conversation. The situation is so bad that those in the birth biz are discussing, writing about, and conferencing on post-traumatic stress disorder. No wonder women are rejecting hospitals and doctors and birthing at home with midwives.


Green Things

This week I ran across Bamboo Diapers. I'm skeptical. David Yaussy at WV Environmental Law discusses Bamboo as Environmentally Sustainable Crop. And AgLawyer Susan Schneider reflects on Recent Perspectives on Meat Production.


Well, that's a wrap for Blawg Review #158! Thank you, everyone, for you submissions. A special award goes to Anne Reed of Deliberations as the "Most Suggested" blawger.

Blawg Review has information about next week's host, and instructions on how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues.

Midwifery-related Legal Resources

This is something of a work-in-progress, so if you know of others, please email me or leave a comment.

From Calling To Courtroom: A Survival Guide for Midwives, an online book. Although some of the state-by-state resources are out of date, it remains the only legal guide of its kind.

Midwives Alliance of North America's list of state laws and chart.
Citizens for Midwifery's State by State Guide to Midwifery in the United States.

Articles:
CfM's Midwifery and the Constitution
What to Do When Your Midwife Has Been Charged by Katherine Prown, Ph.D.
Suzanne Hope Suarez, Midwifery is Not the Practice of Medicine, 5 Yale JL & Feminism 315 (Spring 1993).
Eric Jansson, In childbirth, the new makes way for the old.

For cases where the courts ruled that midwifery does not constitute the practice of medicine or nursing for purposes of statutes regulating the practice of medicine, see the NARM Position Paper on the Practice of Midwifery.

Websites:
Legal Aspects of Midwifery from Ronnie Falcao's Gentle Birth Archives.
Midwifery Related Law from Motherstuff.com
The Big Push for Midwives

Books:
Jennifer Block, Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care (Chapters 6 & 7).
Raymond DeVries, Making Midwives Legal: Childbirth, Medicine, and the Law.

Blawg Reviews & Other Bloggy Goodness

Hello Faithful Readers!

Next week's Blawg Review will be hosted right here, by Yours Truly. Not coincidentally, May 5th is also International Midwives' Day, so of course the theme of Number 158 will be "Midwifery and the Law". But posts on a wide variety of legal topics will be included as well. If you would like to submit a post for consideration, instructions are available at Blawg Review.

This week's Blawg Review has been posted at Thoughts From a Management Lawyer, a Canadian labor & employment law blog. Also of note: Carnival of Moms in The Law is a monthly law-moms roundup hosted by Power of Attorney. Moms In Lawschool is a weekly carnival which rotates between PT-LawMom and A Little Fish in Law School. And the law-student author of the intriguing The Art of Manliness is starting The Manival, a blog carnival "for posts dedicated to man stuff."

Enjoy, and please come visit next Monday for Blawg Review!