Who are CPMs?
A Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) is a knowledgeable, skilled and professional primary maternity care provider. Certified Professional Midwives are trained and credentialed to offer expert care, education, counseling and support to women for pregnancy, birth and the postpartum period. CPMs practice as autonomous health professionals working within a network of relationships with other maternity care providers who can provide consultation and collaboration when needed. All Certified Professional Midwives meet the standards for certification set by the North American Registry of Midwives (NARM).
In the United States, Certified Professional Midwives provide unique and critical access to normal physiologic birth, which profoundly benefits mothers and newborns. Although qualified to practice in any setting, they have particular expertise in providing care in homes and free-standing birth centers, and own or work in over half of the birth centers in the U.S. today.
Certified Professional Midwives are a fast-growing branch of the midwifery profession in the United States. With the first CPM certificate issued in 1994, and with over 4354 certificates awarded as of January 2023, approximately 1 in 5 midwives in the U.S. today is a CPM.
Why Choose a Certified Professional Midwife for your Birth?
Certified Professional Midwives (CPM) are the only nationally-credentialed midwives in the U.S. with special training in providing community-based care, offering services for home and midwife-owned birth center care.
In a maternity care system that has come more and more to rely on medical interventions that are not proven to benefit healthy women during childbirth, women in ever-greater numbers are turning to CPMs and home and birth center care to give birth to their babies. More and more women are seeking care that reflects their aspirations to give birth naturally, knowing that it profoundly benefits them and their babies. Women want to be full and respected partners in their own care, and to have the time, education, attention and company of a midwife they have come to know during pregnancy for themselves and their babies. CPMs provide a model of care that meets the needs and wishes of women seeking this kind of high-quality childbirth experience.
You deserve choices in childbirth, and NACPM is working with many local and national organizations to help provide communities with more options, more access, and better models of care.
Click here (2014 MANA Stats Study) and here to read research articles on quality and safety in home and birth center birth.
CPMs own and/or work in over half of the free-standing birth centers in the U.S. Read here about birth centers.
Online Resources for Families
» Birth Network
» Childbirth Connection website
» Choices in Childbirth
» Citizens for Midwifery
» The Birth Survey
» MEAC Consumers page
» Transforming Maternity Care
» CIMS, Coalition for Improving Maternity Services