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NEWS: Update on Missouri Home Birth Safety Act
News on the Missouri Midwives Bill
CONTACT: Mary Ueland (417) 543-4258, grassroots@...
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Saturday, May 17, 2008
Missouri Families See Progress of Midwives Licensure Bill
Midwives Legislation clears huge hurdle Friday in the Missouri Senate even as time runs out for the bill to pass the House
(Jefferson City, Mo)-While HB2081, a bill that would have provided for the licensure and regulation of Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs), passed in the Missouri Senate by a wide margin late afternoon Friday, time ran out on the bill as it headed back to the House in the final hour of the last day of the 2008 legislative session. An emergency clause in the bill also passed the Senate by a strong majority, which would have caused the law to go into effect as soon as Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt signed it.
"We are so excited that our bill passed the Senate today, and we celebrate this victory that has never been accomplished in our 25 years of work here at the Capitol," said Laurel Smith, President of the Friends of Missouri Midwives. "The thousands and thousands of people from across the state and beyond, who know first-hand the multiple benefits that CPMs provide, sense that passage of our bill is inevitable. Yet we are very sad and immensely concerned that we didn't cross the finish line today, and we are still holding great hope that Missouri lawmakers have the dedication it takes to make sure every family in Missouri has increased access to maternity care and increased freedom of healthy birth options."
CPMs are allowed in to practice 40 states, 24 of which license and regulate them. Missouri law classifies CPMs as felons. Currently, most Missouri women planning home births are birthing with underground, unlicensed midwives; making over-the-state-line dashes to give birth in Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, or Tennessee with legal CPMs; or birthing at home alone with no provider at all. The delay in passing the bill means that this year an anticipated 800 mothers will continue to birth within Missouri's unregulated homebirth maternity care system.
"Our efforts to pass the Home Birth Safety Act are gaining momentum, and it is very exciting to see," said Debbie Smithey, President of the Missouri Midwives Association. "As we have for the past 25 years, we will continue to work to ensure that midwives who have met the national standard and state regulations are legally available to provide care for families who desire out-of-hospital births. We will continue to advocate for a bill that provides transparency and accountability through the state agencies that oversee midwife licensure and birth records."
In addition to being trained as specialists in out-of-hospital birth, CPMs are experts in risk assessment who work in collaboration with physicians when mothers or babies develop conditions that require a consultation or transfer of care. CPMs are also trained to ensure that all babies born outside of the hospital undergo state-mandated newborn screenings and are provided with legal and secure birth certificates.
The Missouri Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the midwifery provision that passed the Missouri Legislature last year as part of a larger health insurance reform bill. It would have legalized CPMs. But physicians groups brought a lawsuit against the state of Missouri, alleging it to be unconstitutional and the provision was struck down in August 2007, shortly before the law would have taken effect. The homebirth families of Missouri appealed the decision to the Missouri Supreme Court, where oral arguments were heard March 5.
Missouri families are hopeful that the State Supreme Court will agree with them that legalizing CPMs is related to increasing access to health care for uninsured and under-insured Missourians. The court ruling is expected in a few weeks.
Samanda Rossi is a Webster Groves, MO mother who wants the midwifery law to stand, "I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I think the Court will rule in favor of what the legislature passed last year."
If the court rules in favor of the midwife provision from last year, CPMs would immediately be legal to practice in Missouri. If the Court agrees with the physician groups' side, Certified Professional Midwives will remain felons under Missouri law, facing up to seven years in prison for delivering babies.
Either way, Missouri's home birth families say that they will not give up until they have access to the maternity care providers of their choice. Groups from across the nation-including those who have already supported Missouri midwives and families in a friend-of-the-court brief to the State Supreme Court-have pledged to work with Missouri citizens to challenge the organized medicine special interest whose effors would deny women safe and effective childbirth options.
Missouri is a priority of The Big Push for Midwives Campaign <http://www.TheBigPushforMidwives.org>, a nationally coordinated campaign to advocate for regulation and licensure of Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and to push back against the attempts of the American Medical Association Scope of Practice Partnership to deny American families access to legal midwifery care.
Media inquiries should be directed to Mary Ueland at (417) 543-4258, grassroots@....
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Friends of Missouri Midwives www.friendsofMOmidwives.org
Missouri Midwives Association www.missourimidwivesassociation.org
Show-Me Freedom in Healthcare www.showmefreedompac.org
Free the Midwives www.freethemidwives.org
The Big Push for Midwives www.TheBigPushforMidwives.org
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