NACPM Federal Policy Priorities

NACPM’s Commitments  guide our federal policy priorities and initiatives:

•  Ensuring that midwives are the primary perinatal care providers in the United States

• Advocating for CPMs to the public, state and federal legislators and health policy makers

• Influencing state and national policy to improve birth outcomes in all settings throughout the United States

• Investing in a strong, racially, ethnically, and socially representative CPM workforce to meet the needs of childbearing people

• Eliminating unconscionable disparities in birth outcomes for people of color, Indigenous people, and their infants

• Ensuring safe, high-quality, respectful care for all women and childbearing people

• Securing a place in the perinatal care system for the unique and valuable services of CPMs

•  Dismantling systemic racism in midwifery and the perinatal care system

As holders of one of three nationally recognized midwife credentials, CPMs are primary perinatal care providers. They provide unique and critical access to normal physiologic birth, profoundly benefitting birthing people and their newborns. As community-based midwives offering care in homes and free-standing birth centers, CPMs have a vital role to play in providing services in communities most affected by inequities in birth outcomes, where the need is most urgent, the outcomes the poorest, and services currently most limited.  Founded in 2001, NACPM directs its influence toward improving outcomes for all childbearing people and their infants; developing, strengthening and diversifying the profession; and informing public policy with the values inherent in CPM care.