FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE By Jennifer Antonik, Momma Trauma Blog The rights, freedoms and safety of Delaware women are quickly becoming severely limited as they currently have no legal access to skilled health care providers permitted to attend planned homebirths, limiting their freedoms, safety and human rights. Imagine answering a knock at your door to find a state investigator staring back at you with questions regarding the uneventful birth of your healthy child. Some families across Delaware have been dealing with just this scenario. The common thread? Those visited recently birthed their child(ren) at home rather than in hospital and/or birth center settings and are now being questioned on who attended their birth(s), specifically which, if any, midwives were in attendance. Midwives who once practiced in Delaware are now being forced “underground” or out of state to work, due to licensing requirements making it impossible for them to legally practice in Delaware. Those who have practiced in Delaware in recent years are now being sought after by the state in hopes of "catching them in the act" of midwifery by arriving at a home shortly after a birth or otherwise contacting the home birth families to obtain names. Restricting access to competent care leaves few options for women who choose planned homebirths and increases the risk of doing so without a skilled birth attendant or attempting to leave the state of Delaware altogether while in labor to birth where she is able to be attended to legally. Major safety concerns also arise when rare cases which require transferring a laboring woman to a hospital are met with the reality that the midwife could be arrested upon arrival. It all adds up to make birth less safe for both mother and baby. Over 99% of all United States women give birth in a hospital or birth center setting, yet our maternal mortality rates continue to rise with a whopping 49 countries ranking better than the United States, including, according to Amnesty International, some developing countries. Save the Children’s recent report, “State of the the World’s Mother’s,” which was released on Mother’s Day 2013 also stated, “The United States has the highest first-day death (newborns) rate in the industrialized world. This is 50 percent more first-day deaths than all other industrialized countries combined.” Because of these problems and others often associated with hospital-based maternity care such as poor breastfeeding support, skyrocketing Cesarean rates (DE-33.9%) and the overused “cascade of interventions” including early and often non-evidence-based inductions, some moms (although still rare) make the informed decision to birth their child at home. Current medical evidence shows homebirth to be as safe or safer than births in a hospital setting when appropriately supported by a trained, skilled, experienced and licensed midwife offering a continuity of care and individualized assessments to identify if someone is not a good candidate for home birth.
In order to increase Delawareans access to midwifery-care, Delaware families are demanding the state amend Delaware Code Title 16, 4106 Practice of Non-Nurse Midwifery, Section 4.3, which bars professional, non-nurse midwives from becoming licensed within our state as it is impossible for them to obtain full collaborative agreements with a Delaware licensed physician with obstetrical hospital privileges due to insurance barriers. Without this requirement, our midwives and doctors could still work together to offer the best care possible for our families. Only one non-nurse midwife has been able to claim her licensure to practice in Delaware as she was grandfathered into the system prior to the current regulations which took effect over ten years ago. She continues to offer homebirth options to those who could not take part of institutionalized healthcare for religious reasons, but is not legally sanctioned to attend homebirths otherwise. According to a 2012 study, also found in the CMAJ, the best maternity care in the world features respectful collaboration among midwives, doctors, and hospital staff. Instead of using state resources to restrict women’s rights in birth, endanger the lives of mothers and babies, and wrongfully criminalize women who support other women in their lawful action of giving birth where they choose, the State of Delaware should work towards providing better maternity care for all mothers who reside within her borders, including all of their rights, freedoms and safety concerns. If this has happened to your family, we want to hear from you! E-mail us at [email protected] or find us on Facebook: Page & Group. Help Make a Difference!
Keep up with the Story: Speak Out: Delaware moms losing freedom to birth safely (printable) Update: Delaware Dept. of Health response puzzling at best, women's freedoms still in question
6 Comments
5/20/2013 11:12:30 pm
Jennifer, this is a great post! This needs to be a newspaper article! any chance you can submit this to the WNJ or Dover paper? How about NPR? Can I send this to the MD NPR reporter who interviewed me? Maybe you can be the Delaware Families for Safe Birth blogger!
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5/21/2013 01:18:52 am
Hi Karen, thanks so much. I appreciate the kind words! Please do send this far and wide to any contact you may have, *especially* media contacts! I have e-mailed it to the Delaware State News, News Journal, NPR and a few others (I think, it was late). BUT, the more e-mails they get about it, the more likely they are to print it so share share share!!!
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5/21/2013 01:19:40 am
Fabulous Brian, thank you! I should have linked to that in the first place. :-P I will add this now.
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10/21/2013 07:09:05 pm
I think you need a good private investigator
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