I think currently about 27ish states license CPMs (certified professional midwives). Unfortunately, Georgia where I live and North Carolina (the state of which I will write about) do not yet recognize this certification or allow them to practice legally. Some states have taken the high road and allowed for voluntary licensing, but have decriminalized the practice even if the midwife choose to practice without a license.
Calling yourself a midwife and entering into practice is a responsibility and a privilege. When done right and with skill, you assist women throughout their childbirthing season, often from pregnancy planning on one end of the spectrum to menopause on the other end of the spectrum. Your job is to continue to learn, both skills and information that can be passed on to the mothers who ask you to come along for their journey. A sacred trust and bond are often formed between midwife and mother. A good midwife is not only skilled but she is part counselor and part cheerleader. After all, with most of a woman's interactions coming from the negative impact of the media and unfortunately other mother's experiences, one of the biggest jobs is helping her to learn to trust the process and her own body's ability to do what it was designed to do.
As to the skills part, the CPM doesn't make you a midwife. Years of apprenticeship, education and experience are what make you a midwife. The CPM is just one way to "prove" that knowledge to an increasingly skeptical world. There are plenty of very skilled and reputable midwives in practice ALL OVER THE WORLD who do not have the letters CPM behind their name, but when push comes to shove, you'd want them with you when a baby is on the way. There are also a few CPMs that you probably wouldn't want to darken your door either.
I'm reminded of the scripture, "Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings; He will not stand before obscure men." Proverbs 22:29 It is the skill and compassion of a midwife that should make a way for her. However, I know we live in a world that doesn't always know how to evaluate those things, except for a certification process. It fails in many ways though.
However, the underlying truth to my discussion is that when a midwife, skilled and proven, loses the right to practice legally in the state in which she lives, ALL the women in that state lose. They lose to a medical culture who has lost touch with what a normal birth looks like. They have lost to a political process which is led, not by reason and statistics, but to whichever group can afford the best lobbyists. They have lost to a cesarean rate which is immorally high and leaves many women as obstetrical cripples, with limited choices as to how to birth their subsequent offspring. They have lost the most fundamental freedom of birthing mothers: who do I trust to see me safely through this process and who do I want to surround myself with when I birth this baby? This might sound, if you are not very well informed, like it could be a dangerous choice, but the statistics would not bear out your fears.
Yes, there are times and situations when birth leaves its normal low risk status and that is when the medical community does its best work. They can be the cavalry needed to rescue mother and baby during those situations. But for normal, low risk women it is overkill.
Enter Amy Medlin, CPM in NC. She has a court date this morning for practicing midwifery in a state which does not recognize her credentials or skill. Amy has safely tended to hundreds of mothers and babies over the years. She has an excellent reputation. Her arrest involved a stillborn baby in which she was not the primary midwife, nor was she present when this mother gave birth. She was supposed to assist another midwife but didn't get there before the baby was born. Another birth in which she was involved in skilled resuscitation after the birth of a baby is where she was actually arrested. Resuscitation is something practiced in every hospital in the world from time to time. But you don't see them arresting a physician who assists at a birth in which the baby needs help getting started. You don't see a physician in handcuffs and shackles held overnight in jail before being released on bond.
No.
Why do legislators allow the "competition" to completely control who their competitors will be? Historically, in THIS country alone, there has always been a need to discredit and vilify midwives from the obstetrical community. In other countries, they work peacefully hand in hand, both knowing their strengths and weaknesses and doing what is best for the mother/baby. The practice of obstetrics is full of interventions which have NO scientific basis for their continued use. Think early cord clamping, multiple ultrasounds, separation from the mother at birth, birthing in the lithotomy position, withholding food and water during labor. I could go on and on.
But today, Amy is the victim. But she is not the only victim. Every expectant mother and future expectant mother in NC is a victim. A victim of a system out of control but in control.
Pray for her today. Pray for women in this state and every state. Pray for midwives. Then speak up. If your state has good laws, be thankful and pray for those states who do not. If your state does not have good laws concerning non-nurse midwives, contact your state representative and let them know this most basic right of YOURS is not being upheld.
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