Please join the NACPM Leadership Team and staff for our Fifth Virtual Annual Meeting!
Upcoming Webinars announced
Please check out our most recent newsletter for details on upcoming webinars and our Annual Meeting.
Fall 2018 Chapter Newsletter
The NACPM Chapter Program is growing in depth as well as breadth as we focus on how to bring an even deeper level of support to our chapters in the coming year. We currently have nineteen fully formed chapters with four in formation and inquiries from an additional eight states. We have so far hosted fifteen quarterly Chapter Collaboration Calls and offer quarterly chapter newsletters. The NACPM State Chapter Equity Toolkit is currently undergoing an external review process in an effort to enhance value and mitigate bias, and we hope to have this resource available very soon. Lastly, we hosted the first-ever in-person Chapter Leaders Day on May 20, 2018 outside of Washington, DC. We are building momentum, and we would love for you to join us! Contact Susan at chapters@nacpm.org for more information.
Limited Time Launch Funding for Newly Formed Chapters Through the End of 2018
We would like to thank Ann Geisler of Southern Cross Insurance Solutions for her generous support of the NACPM Sate Chapter Program. Since 2015, she has offered $500 start-up funding for each new chapter. This launch funding, which more than covers the cost of chapter formation and gives new chapters a surplus to put toward their state priorities, will no longer be available after the end of the calendar year. If you are considering forming a chapter in your state, now is the time! Contact Susan at chapters@nacpm.org for more information on forming your state chapter today
State to State Sharing of Resources & Models Through the Chapter Program
In our experience of working with chapters, NACPM is collecting resources and models from states that can be shared with other states. The great value of a vibrant network of CPMs across the country lies in no one state having to toil in isolation or reinvent the wheel. We all benefit from this state to state sharing, and we hope to continue growing these sorts of relationships and collaborations through the Chapter Program. Some exciting examples coming out of our state chapters include the following:
Maine’s example of cross-system collaboration and the benefits that are now leading to a system-wide perinatal collaborative
North Carolina’s model for successful cross-professional relationship building through NCMERA, which is modeled after the USMERA collaboration. NACPM has recently shared this information with Rhode Island as a model.
NACPM frequently shares specific resources from Smooth Transitions in Washington State, which use the Home Birth Summit transfer guidelines. Representatives from Washington have expressed a willingness to bring this program to other states either virtually or in person.
Washington, DC is a current example, as is last year’s legislation effort in Hawaii, of including indigenous and religious exemptions in CPM legislation.
The NACPM system of chapters is becoming an effective avenue for outreach to state leaders which facilitates direct communication between states and from states to the national organization.
Carolina Birth Junkies Third Annual Retreat
For the third year running, the North Carolina and South Carolina Chapters of NACPM have held a joint Summer Island Retreat near Rock Hill, SC on an island in the Catawba River. This event began as a recertification opportunity for NRP and CPR, and it grew into a vision for midwives coming together to learn, connect, and RELAX! Lori Gibson of the South Carolina Chapter and Christine Strothers of the North Carolina Chapter chose the island location because they sensed a shortage of opportunities for midwives to come together and talk with other midwives in a relaxed atmosphere. Lori likes to think of it as a “standing appointment with each other every year” that ensures they will step away from the craziness of busy midwifery practice and get to know each other and enjoy some R&R.
Lori considers this very important for self-care, especially considering the demands of midwifery. Every year they have a massage therapist so that participants can get a 20-minute chair massage to help ease the tension from their busy, stressful work load. The first year they did a three-hour team building event, and last year (when NRP and CPR recertifications weren’t on the docket) there was more down time to walk around the island, breathe in the fresh air, and let their minds rest. Lori says this year was pretty packed with the promised NRP recertification with Karen Strange and several other excellent speakers including Henci Goer, Justine Clegg, Andie Nantz, Christine Strothers, Sakina O’Uhuru, Belinda Leshea, and Susan Smartt Cook from the NACPM Chapter Program. While the quality and value of the educational components were top notch, they were reminded of the importance of protecting down time. Next year, there will be more time to breathe and connect, and they hope to draw even more midwives from across the country. This year 45 participants registered for NRP and nearly 30 stayed for the entire weekend, including some from Kentucky, Colorado, and New York. You certainly don’t have to be from the Carolinas to join in the fun, so keep an eye out for more info at www.carolinabirthjunkies.com.
Click here to see the full schedule from this year’s retreat
Bigger Table Fund: Financial Awards for NARM Exam and Licensing Fees
NACPM is excited to announce the launch of the Bigger Table Fund! The Fund will provide financial awards for student midwives of color, indigenous and/or LGBTQ student midwives for the initial NARM examination fee, the fee for retaking the NARM examination when needed, and state licensure fees.
The goal of the fund is to remove some of the significant financial barriers that student midwives of color, indigenous and/or LGBTQ student midwives face when entering the CPM profession. We recognize that there are multiple barriers beyond the NARM exam and state licensure fees that student midwives encounter, and it is our ardent intention to grow this fund in the coming years to help defray some of those additional expenses.
Funds will be distributed quarterly, according to a lottery system, with $3,000 available per cycle. The maximum individual award is $1,000. We invite you to apply to the Bigger Table Fund. You also can access the application on the NACPM website.
The Bigger Table Fun FAQ can be found here.
2019 Application Deadlines
January 15, April 15, July 15, October 15
2019 Bigger Table Fund Award Announcement Days
February 1, May 1, August 1, November 1
NACPM is committed to:
* investing in a strong CPM workforce that is racially, ethnically, and socially representative that can meet the needs of all childbearing people;
* ensuring that native families have access to the services of Indigenous CPMs;
* opposing the oppression of LGBTQ people, including homophobia, transphobia, and violence based on sexuality, gender expression, and family structure;
* understanding and addressing the compound negative impact of oppression on marginalized childbearing people with multiple intersecting identities.
NACPM is launching the Bigger Table Fund in partial fulfillment of these commitments.
The name of the fund is derived from two different sources. One is the quotation: “When you have more than you need, build a bigger table not a higher fence,” the underlying premise being that we need less isolation, more community, and greater abundance for all. We know that sustainability is an issue for many, if not most CPMs; we also recognize that there is an unfair and inequitable distribution of resources for education and entry into practice due to the systemic forces of racism, colonialism, homophobia, and transphobia.
The fund’s name is also a reference to the quotation: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” We know that inclusion matters and that the future of midwifery and access to safe, compassionate, and culturally responsive care for all childbearing people depends on who has a seat at the table. So, we’re seeking to expand ours.
Please click the link to donate to the Bigger Table Fund (please write BTF in the note)
We welcome and encourage donations to this fund from our members and wider community!
NACPM: Commitment to Justice for Pregnant People and Their Families
NACPM is committed to justice for all childbearing people, their babies and their families, and to ensuring their health and wellbeing. In this issue we focus on two issues of concern to pregnant people and families in the U.S.: the unconscionable practice of shackling incarcerated laboring prison inmates and the assault on the rights of American citizens by the denial or revocation of passports for people born at home in the U.S. with midwives.
Newly-Licensed CPMs Likely to Change the Economics of Giving Birth in Alabama
On celebratory note, NACPM applauds the September 13th report by Julia Simon of National Public Radio on the program, Morning Edition, highlighting the health and economic benefits coming soon to the people and state of Alabama as a result of the successful efforts by the Alabama Birth Coalition to pass the Childbirth Freedom Act in May 2017. This legislation establishes a board of midwifery and licensing for Certified Professional Midwives. The implementation of this law is about to begin, allowing CPMs to serve families choosing home birth. If you missed the live broadcast on September 13th, download the audio and enjoy this momentous National Public Radio account of the benefits of CPM care!
NACPM Joins the Call to End Shackling of Pregnant Inmates
On September 13th, an article in the Washington Post announced bipartisan legislation, spearheaded by Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) and Rep. Mia Love (R-UT), to outlaw the shackling of pregnant women in federal prisons. Currently, only 22 states and the District of Columbia have established anti-shackling laws– and even these states lack strict reporting requirements, making enforcement difficult to assess. This House legislation, along with the Senate’s Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act, introduced July 11, 2017 by Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), would ban the shackling of pregnant inmates at the federal level. “Shackling women can endanger their pregnancy,” Bass said. “The idea that a pregnant woman is going to escape anywhere when she can barely walk is ludicrous. Shackling women on the wrists, waist and legs is a dangerous practice and a cruel practice.”
In January 2018, the NACPM Board voted to endorse ACOG’s Committee Opinion Statement: Health Care for Pregnant and Postpartum Incarcerated Women and Adolescent Females. With this endorsement, NACPM joins ACOG, the American Medical Association, the American Public Health Association, the American College of Nurse-Midwives and others in calling for an end to the shackling of all pregnant people during labor, and the provision of respectful and safe care to all pregnant inmates. NACPM will support the emerging federal legislation to end shackling and calls on all 28 states and territories with no currently established laws to pass similar legislation.
For decades, international human rights organizations have expressed concern about the use of shackling of pregnant women during labor in the U.S. In 1999, Amnesty International published a report, “Not Part of My Sentence”: Violations of the Human Rights of Women in Custody,” calling for an immediate end to the practice. While international standards restrict the use of physical restraints to preventing escape, injury to self or others, or damage to property, in the U.S. such restraints, including ankle and belly chains and metal handcuffs, are used as a matter of course.
The critical importance of ending the practice of shackling and providing safe pregnancy care in prisons takes on added significance with the growing attention to the injustices of mass incarceration. In 2018, 2.3 million people were held in U.S. prisons, a rate far beyond any other nation in the world. In addition, the racial, ethnic and social make-up of incarcerated populations is dramatically different from that of the U.S. as a whole. Black people make up 40% of prison inmates, despite constituting only 13% of the U.S. population. Native men are incarcerated at four times the rate of white men. Nearly one in six transgender people , including 21% of transgender women, have been incarcerated at some point in their lives—far higher than the rate for the general population
Rates of incarceration are growing faster for women than for men, with 219,000 imprisoned in 2017. Sixty percent of these women have not been convicted of a crime and are in jail awaiting trial. Although there is little reliable data, 1,400 people are estimated to give birth in prison each year, with thousands more who are pregnant passing through our prisons annually. These people are exceptionally vulnerable to “shamefully dangerous prenatal care,” shackling during labor, and separation from their infants after birth. Parent-infant bonding is crucial for the mother herself and for the infant’s development as a healthy functioning adult. Lack of adequate bonding endangers the infant’s mental health and very survival and bodes ill for the post-imprisonment functioning and ability to parent for the mother. Justice demands reform of our policies of mass incarceration, and the end to practices that threaten and endanger the health and well-being of incarcerated pregnant people and their infants.
NACPM Responds to Denial of Passports of People Born at Home
NACPM deplores the most recent instance of the current administration’s assault on the rights of American citizens: denying passport applications from those born at home with midwives, especially along our southern border with Mexico. This denial of the rights of people of color is part of a pattern of racial bias that has grown and become codified in policies of this administration, including separating children from their families at the border, detention of those seeking asylum, migrants funneled into the most dangerous parts of the desert, citizens threatened with deportation, barriers imposed by stricter federal voter identification rules, and now a denial of citizenship.
NACPM endorses the Health Policy Statement on Passport Denials issued by the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA) . NACPM joins MANA in condemning any involvement of healthcare professionals in the provision of fraudulent vital records. Most importantly, however, NACPM shares the deep concern about the egregious and persistent violation of rights based on race or ethnicity. We join MANA in calling for respect for the integrity of midwives and their life-saving care for families choosing and needing homebirth services. We join their call to the Trump administration to abide by the principles of justice and the government settlement in the 2009 case litigated by the American Civil Liberties Union to end discrimination against those from border states who were born at home.
Meet NACPM’s New Board Members
We will have 3 new Board Members joining NACPM at this month’s Leadership Team meeting.
New NACPM Membership Policy announced
Please read the announcement by the NACPM Leadership team
Meet the Candidates
NACPM is electing two new Board members this summer. If you are a CPM Member of NACPM, you will receive an email with voting instructions. Here are our candidates in their own words:
Jenny Jahn, CPM, LM, CHD from New Mexico states: “The National Association of Certified Professional Midwives was presented to my class when I was in midwifery school. Thereafter, a fellow midwife endorsed NACPM and I decided to look into it. Doing research, NACPM made an impact on me because it promotes women’s heath through the CPM credential and promotes the CPM as a profession. I appreciate how NACPM is its own entity for my profession as a CPM without comparing the CPM to a CNM, MD or ND, etc. I am running for the NACPM Board because I believe in this philosophy of keeping the CPM profession and because I am in a place in life to make the commitment to the requirements listed.
As a Board member of NACPM, I would like to contribute to the good already going on by the current Board as well as bring myself to the table. It is my hope to continue to promote the CPM to, in turn, better women and families during the childbearing years and overall heath thereof. Far too many CPMs are turning to become CNMs because of the lack of trust, support, financial stability and sustainability of practicing as a CPM. We can do better than to change our profession. This minimizes the CPM credential even further. Furthermore, as a member of the LGBTQ community, I feel I can offer this unique perspective.
If I am elected to the NACPM Board, I hope to experience a broader spectrum of being in the healthcare field as a midwife and to expand my midwifery community. I hope to experience midwifery on a national and, dare I hope, international scale.”
April Haugen, MSM, LM, CPM from Washington State shares: “I am excited to be running for a position on the NACPM board. I am passionate about increasing access of CPM’s in the US, establishing standards of care/equality in our communities, and providing culturally sensitive care to the family’s midwives are so passionate about. Being on the board will increase my capacity to make a difference in furthering the advancement of midwifery. I want to be a part in making midwifery sustainable by affecting CMP’s on the State and Federal level.
I have been supporting families as a birth doula since 2000, then went on to obtain my Bachelor’s Degree in Herbal Science from Bastyr University in 2010. In 2014 graduated with Masters in the Science of Midwifery from Bastyr University. I’ve practicing as a Licensed Midwife and CPM since 2014. My solo practice is in Ellensburg, a rural part of Central WA. I provide home birth services. It has been such a unique experience establishing validation as a medical professional and working to create respectful collegiate relationships with the other practitioners in the area. This has opened even greater opportunities as teaching is my other passion. I preceptor student midwives from many different schools and in 2017 became a preceptor for the Community Health Family Resident Physician program. It has been such a joy guiding resident physicians through the midwifery model of care; client led, supporting physiologic birth and providing family center care. These doctors are going out from this community to work with CPM’s around the US and will be open to creating and establishing relationships with them. This will only increase sustainability and acknowledgment of CPM’s.
Outside of clinical work, I spend a lot of time volunteering in many other ways. I was recently nominated for the Midwifery Advisory Committee in WA State starting in 2019, spend time on the DOH-Maternal Mortality Panel, volunteer on the breastfeeding coalition in Ellensburg and volunteer in Search and Rescue of Kittitas County. I am an avid hiker and keep busy raising my two teenagers as a single parent. I am passionate about birth and finding a way to provide the best care possible with sustainability.”
Laura Perez, LM, CPM from California writes: “When I learned that I had a womb, I became a feminist. When I learned that there were people actively trying to control and colonize my womb, I became a reproductive freedom and rights activist. And when I learned what a midwife was, I decided to become one. I suppose I need to be mindful about what I learn about since these things tend to shape my life.
Some of the things I’ve done include being a member of the Women of Color Organizing Project with CARAL, being a co-founder of Exhale, a national multilingual after abortion counseling talk line, and being a regional rep for CAM, the California Association of Midwives.
I’ve taught well over a hundred medical students how to do women-centered and comprehensive breast and pelvic exams as a Gynecological Teaching Associate, using my own aforementioned womb and breasts as teaching tools. I’ve done volunteer and paid doula work on and off for the past 13 years. And I’m an apprentice trained Certified Professional Midwife, a Licensed Midwife, with my own practice, and one of only two midwives of color based in San Francisco.
I’m proud to identify as a working class immigrant of Native and Latin American heritage. My partner and I are also parents to a seventh grader who owns our hearts.
Why I want to run for the NACPM board:
Midwives have the ability to affect significant change in maternity care nationally. I think that NACPM may be a resource for midwives who would like to be a part of that significant change. While I believe these are dire times in the U.S., I also believe that mothers and midwives offer much needed hope for families searching for workable solutions, not just to the maternity health crisis, but also larger community health issues. I would like to offer my perspective to the conversations that NACPM is having regarding the current and future role and goals of midwifery.”
Megan Koontz, MSM, LM, CPM is a midwife, a midwifery educator and is passionate regarding midwifery issues. She currently lives in Anchorage, Alaska having moved in 2016 from Ridgecrest, California, but she is originally from New Zealand.
Megan has worked midwife across a variety of setting including as a home birth, birthing center and hospital midwife. She has attended births in New Zealand, England, Alaska, Utah, and California. The variety of birth place has means that Megan has supported people through a wide range of birthing experiences, from natural home births to hospital births that included epidurals and cesarean sections.
Megan obtained her Bachelor of Midwifery in New Zealand in 2001, and Masters in Midwifery in 2015. She started as faculty with the Midwives College of Utah and currently holds the position of Core Academic Faculty and Academic Dean. Megan is currently completing the Postgraduate certificate in Educational Design and Technology through the University of Memphis.
Megan loves the outdoors including skiing, skating, hiking and biking and is surprising herself by enjoying winter in Alaska almost more than she enjoys summer.
Megan writes: “I am interested in running for the board to support the growth of midwifery in the USA. My midwifery career began in New Zealand where I first trained and spent my early years as a midwife. The experience of working within system where midwifery is fully integrated at a national level is one reason for my enthusiasm for working to advance midwifery. I believe that midwives can be their most effective when they are a respected member of a team the comes together to support birthing people.
I have the daily privilege of working with our upcoming midwives. They constantly challenge me to become the midwife I know I should be. This means working towards a stronger, more equitable system that recognizes midwives for our knowledge, our education and our experience and demands that we examine our role in ensuring quality, appropriate and respectful care for all birthing people. For this to happen we need to eliminate the current systemic racism and remove the existing differences in birth outcomes. If selected I would expect to support the work of NACPM as well as continuing my own personal work in these areas.
My daily work with a school that exists in a web-based environment, as well as my current studies in Educational Technology, ensure that I am fluent in navigating online spaces and communication. As NACPM is a national body, much of the work involved in being part of the board revolves around creating and distributing online content and my work in this area would complement the work the board is already doing.”
Kate Hartwell, CM, CPM is a New Hampshire Certified Midwife, a Certified Professional Midwife, and the owner and operator of Concord Birth Center in Concord, NH. She is also the owner of The River Guild, a holistic health center. Her career in birth work has spanned 11 years and she has attended over 600 births. Kate is a member of the New Hampshire Midwifery Council, where she serves as Secretary. She is also a member of the NH Newborn Screening Advisory Committee. Kate and her colleagues at the Concord Birth Center value informed birth experiences and equal access to midwifery care. She is a mother of two daughters, and in her free time enjoys spending time with them in the beautiful Granite State.
Kate writes “I am running for this board position at NACPM because I feel strongly that this organization is capable of securing accessibility to midwives for the majority of birthing people. I am also impressed by NACPM’s commitment to ending the enormous racial disparities that exist in maternity care in this country.”
Elizabeth Baer, CPM, LDM, from Oregon writes: “Shortly after birthing my first baby in October 2000, I found Ina May’s Spiritual Midwifery at a Barnes & Noble. I’d remembered hearing about midwives in high school history class and was pleased to learn that out of hospital midwives were still a thing. I had always been interested in public health and thought that becoming a midwife would suit my personality and career goals.
At that point, we knew we wanted more children, and I kept putting off midwifery school. I worked for the Baltimore County WIC Program as a Breastfeeding Peer Counselor from 2001-2005. In 2010, I trained as a doula and helped found the Central New York Doula Connection. After attending my first Midwifery Today conference in the spring of 2011, I began midwifery school that summer, through the National Midwifery Institute (a MEAC accredited program), and graduated in 2014.
I live and work in Oregon’s rural Mid-Valley region with my husband and five biological children. I am lucky to work in partnership with another midwife, at Midvalley Birthing Services, a home birth practice. I have been a licensed midwife here in Oregon since 2014.
I first heard about NACPM and its work at the 2013 MANA conference in Portland, Oregon, for which I served on the planning committee. I am a member of NACPM and enjoy what they have to offer their members and midwives as a whole. Like NACPM, since before beginning my midwifery practice, I have envisioned a healthcare system where all mothers have access to midwifery care, are able to birth with a midwife in the location that best suits their family, and have an equal chance to being healthy.
From 2014-16, I served on the Linn Local Advisory Committee, a group that advised our local Medicaid management company on delivering services to members and improving health outcomes in our region.
My goals for my own midwifery practice, and for my time of service on the board, are to improve health outcomes for mothers and babies, encourage safe midwifery practice with good screening and referral guidelines for midwives, and to improve access to midwifery care.
Thank you for your consideration.”
NACPM Statement on the UN Breastfeeding resolution
In response to the opposition of U.S. delegates to a breastfeeding resolution introduced at the World Health Assembly in Geneva in May 2018, the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives (NACPM) has issued the following statement:
NACPM State Chapter Day May 20, 2018
On May 10th before the start of the CPM Symposium, NACPM hosted the first-ever in-person gathering of NACPM chapter members. We were thrilled to have had representation from 13 of our 18 currently formed state chapters at this seminal event plus guests from 4 additional states. This day was designed specifically for chapter leaders and members with the hope of sending them back to their states with information, skills, tools and connections to put to work for their unique state priorities.
NACPM hopes to build on the conversations and connections that began during the Chapter Day through our quarterly chapter collaboration calls, one of which was earlier this week. We had a total of 30 participants over the course of the call and heard from everyone who wished to share about what’s going on in their state and what they are bringing back to their state and local work from our time together at the Chapter Day.
Overview of the Chapter Day
We opened our day together in a circle sharing what question we were bringing. The questions centered around the themes of access and equity, inclusion, unity, and accountability, relationships between NACPM national and Chapters and between Chapters and state associations, and how to bring about broader systemic change:
Access and equity: How do we strategically plan to help POC access midwives? Are we working at our own bigotry and racism?
Inclusion, unity, and accountability: How can we overcome divisions in our midwifery profession? How are we going to ensure communications are in place to learn from our mistakes?
Relationships between NACPM national and Chapters, Chapters and state associations: How can Chapters and state associations work together? How can NACPM support licensed states? Unlicensed states?
Bringing broader systemic change: How does this fit with transformation of our maternity care system overall? How can we support what is coming up?
Chapter Day Presentations
Facilitator Cari Caldwell presented on “Building effective state teams.” Cari shared with us about how to create high performing teams, including asking important questions like why does the team exist? Is there trust within our team? What are our goals? What is our level of commitment? She encouraged us to focus not just on the work we’re doing, but also on how we are building what we’re building. She taught us that it is crucial to get really explicit about the kind of culture we’re creating together and to construct mechanisms for accountability within our organizations.
Saraswathi Vedam from the Birth Place Lab gave a presentation called “Mapping Integration of Midwives Across the United States: Impact on Access, Equity, and Outcomes” in which she described the background and approach of the research behind the work being done at the Birth Place Lab around the importance of integrating midwives into the maternity care system in order to improve perinatal outcomes. She emphasized that understanding the credibility of this research is the basis from which we can bring this information back to our local communities and that the lens for all of their research is ACCESS for families to care, not convenience for midwives.
She reported on the clear correlation between increasing integration of midwives, density of midwives, and access to midwifery care and a decrease in preterm birth and neonatal death. States with a higher population of black babies have poor integration, low density of midwives, and lack of access to care, compounding the unconscionable disparities in outcomes across racial lines with an added layer of risk due to lack of access to the Midwifery Model of Care which we know improves these outcomes. Saras and her team’s research shows how dire the need is to scale up midwifery in the US, where access to midwifery care is significantly lower at around 10% than in other high-resource countries, which typically have 50-75% of births attended by midwives.
This session was packed full of high value, evidence based research and was designed as preparation for the last session of the day in which we applied the State Mapping Tool to our individual state contexts through review of our state report cards, which can be found on the Birth Place Lab website.
Silke Akerson from the Oregon Midwifery Council presented on “Tackling Quality of Care Issues at the State Level / The Oregon Experience” in which she described quality improvement measures taken in Oregon and how these improvements might be applied in other states. Silke defined quality improvement as the “combined and ongoing efforts of a group of people to understand problems and make changes that will lead to better outcomes in a particular system.” She noted that with quality improvement there is a focus on looking at problems and solutions within the system rather than placing specific blame. She taught us about how quality improvement MUST begin with cultural humility and co-creation with the communities they impact.
Some of the specific quality improvement steps that they have taken in Oregon include improving data collection, transport improvement, targeted continuing education, mentorship for new midwives, guidelines for peer review and case review, and midwife participation in public health efforts. Having taken these measures, the perinatal mortality rate of intended community births in Oregon was reduced from 3.9/1,000 in 2012-2013 to 1.005/1,000 in 2015-2016.
Kathryn Moore, Director of State Government Affairs at ACOG shared ACOG’s perspective on CPM State Licensure and Policy and spoke to ACOG’s involvement with the US MERA collaboration.
In addition to reviewing ACOG’s statements and positions on out-of-hospital birth, Kathryn described for us the membership and governing structure of ACOG, how ACOG sets policy nationally, the leeway state ACOG groups have to set their own agenda, priorities and tactics, and the influence state medical societies have on ACOG on the state level.
She pointed to a few examples where ACOG and CPMs collaborated on legislation, including Maine with its year-long professionally facilitated negotiation among stakeholders, Maryland which underwent a collaborative process before the bridge certificate was available, and Florida’s recent legislation on adverse incident reporting.
Chapter Day Evaluation Results:
We largely received very positive feedback from the Chapter Day evaluation that went out after the event. Participants reported that the content was of high value to them, that they made important connections, and that they would eagerly attend future in-person chapter events. We also received some great suggestions including ideas for affinity groups that could take place before a future Chapter Day, such as an opportunity for people of color or states at similar states/chapters at similar stages of development to meet and strategize. There were requests for focus on how to get state legislation passed, how to hire a lobbyist, what to do and not do as a grassroots movement, and also ways to collaborate with the NACPM national office for states with existing regulation. Many shared that they would have appreciated more time to network and connect with one another, which is a wonderful testament to the richness of our growing community and the need for more of these gatherings.
A Most Beautiful Wildfire
Click through for a message from the 2018 CPM Symposium Convening Partners:
Be a part of the Symposium action!
There are a number of opportunities for being a part of the Symposium; you can join in person or virtually, and don’t forget to submit your video vignette!
Changing Systems
Meet the CPM Symposium speakers who will help us understand the different forces at work in the maternity health care system from a range of varying perspectives.
Join our CPM Symposium Livestream!
If you want to participate in the CPM Symposium but can’t make it to the event, read about our livestream options in this week’s newsletter.
Meet CPM Symposium Speakers
Learn more about our CPM Symposium Speakers Claudia Booker, Allyson Juneau-Butler, Elle Annalise L. Schnetzler, Karen Jefferson and Demetra Seriki.
Best Prices for CPM Symposium Still Available!
If you’ve been meaning to register for the CPM Symposium but think you’ve missed the best prices, never fear, there is still time!
50 Speakers at the CPM Symposium!
A rich program with many speakers is planned, including Karline Wilson-Mitchel, Autumn Cavender-Wilson, Kathryn Moore, Denicia Cadena and Tamar Reno.
Share your story with the CPM Symposium!
Certified Professional Midwives (CPM) are committed to bringing the voices and perspectives of people having babies – your voices – into The CPM Symposium on May 11-13. We want to hear from you directly so that your voice and your experience can help to guide this work. With that end in mind, we invite you to make a one-minute video about your experience of having a baby and send it to the planning team for the CPM Symposium.
CPM Symposium Scholarships
NACPM and our Symposium Convening Partners (AME, CfM, ICTC) are committed to supporting a racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse midwifery workforce and providing opportunities for multiple voices to be heard so we can better understand and be responsive to the needs of all childbearing people. In service to this commitment we are offering full and partial scholarships to the 2018 CPM Symposium which are reserved for midwives, students, consumers, allied professionals and advocates who identify as people of color, native, indigenous, and/or LGBTQ2S.