By Cassaundra Jah, Executive Director, NACPM
There is a moment in the birth room, toward the end, when the intensity has almost peaked and clients fall into deep sleep in 90 second increments. All midwives know this moment, when all that is left is patience, quiet companionship, squatting by the birth pool, or sitting on the end of the bed. If it’s a multip, you're probably gloved up and ready, your mind clear, having already looked over the room, taken a mental accounting of equipment, assessed people's energy, and now all that is left is to exist in the reality that it is possible. This is a universal midwife experience.
During this celebratory week of midwifery, I've spent my time contemplating:
what we all have,
what we all share, what we all fear, and
what we all have to gain in our work together.
Midwives use different titles, walk different educational paths, serve in different places for different communities; and we also all hold space, listen, trust birth, and feel called to our work. Yet, Midwifery is one profession, with one scope.
What sets us apart is our journey, our scope at entry into the profession, and our professional growth over our careers. These differences are not our weakness. They are our reach. Each of us is trusted by families the others never meet.
Right now, this very week, midwifery is being asked by our communities to show up in a different way: to help shift the narrative of birth in this country toward joy and empowerment, to increase access to our model of care, and scale choice both of providers and of settings.
Across the millennia, midwifery has lived through many changes — some chosen, some forced upon us. Midwifery has been through evolutions before and will experience evolutions to come.
The question of our time, during this National Midwifery Week, is if we will reap the wisdom from past iterations and build toward something that embraces our similarities, uplifts each other, and includes everyone.
I believe we can build a fully integrated perinatal system rooted in midwifery in the U.S. if we share a common “why.” The question isn't, “What will you compromise on to build this future together?” but, rather, “Why are you willing to compromise?” We are strong enough to have hard conversations, smart enough to understand complexity, resilient enough to show up and be vulnerable, and empathetic enough to have grace for ourselves and all midwives.
We are ready, our minds are clear, we have assessed the situation, taken a mental accounting of what is and is not available, assessed people's energy, and now all that is left is to exist in the reality that it is possible.