Share your story with the CPM Symposium!

Certified Professional Midwives (CPM) are committed to bringing the voices and perspectives of people having babies – your voices – into The CPM Symposium on May 11-13. We want to hear from you directly so that your voice and your experience can help to guide this work. With that end in mind, we invite you to make a one-minute video about your experience of having a baby and send it to the planning team for the CPM Symposium.

FIND DETAILS ABOUT SUBMITTING VIDEO VIGNETTES HERE

CPM Symposium Scholarships

NACPM and our Symposium Convening Partners (AME, CfM, ICTC) are committed to supporting a racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse midwifery workforce and providing opportunities for multiple voices to be heard so we can better understand and be responsive to the needs of all childbearing people. In service to this commitment we are offering full and partial scholarships to the 2018 CPM Symposium which are reserved for midwives, students, consumers, allied professionals and advocates who identify as people of color, native, indigenous, and/or LGBTQ2S.

READ MORE AND FILL OUT THE SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATION

CPM Symposium Program announced

We are excited to announce the carefully crafted CPM Symposium program! It is focused on the priorities voiced by the CPM community: the needs of childbearing people, state and national policy, challenges and solutions to address equity in education, practice and the composition of the CPM workforce, thorny problems and encouraging innovations in education, along with one of your top priorities – viability and sustainability for the profession and the midwifery movement.

READ MORE ABOUT THE PROGRAM AND REGISTER!

Meet the CPM Symposium Facilitators

The 2018 CPM Symposium is a two and one-half day facilitated planning event bringing together midwives, childbearing people,students, educators, policy makers, funders, allied professionals and other stakeholders to plan for the future of the CPM profession. With the support of three skilled facilitators, the convening and consulting partners will create a space for innovative collaboration. Meet the facilitators

READ MORE IN OUR NEWSLETTER

February 2018 Chapter Newsletter

Washington State – Midwives’ Lobby Day 2018

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We are excited to share this update from the MAWS lobby day in Washington State. The Washington State Chapter of NACPM was intentionally designed to function in collaboration with the established state association, MAWS, with a vision for ever-deepening partnership and mutual support. Jen Segadelli serves as a liaison between the two organizations, sitting on the board of each. This update comes from Audrey Levine, NACPM co-president and MAWS board member:

You never know what you’ll miss if you don’t show up for Midwives’ Lobby Day…

This year, we had a record turnout: more than 80 licensed midwives, midwifery students, and healthcare consumers braved the rain and showed up in Olympia on January 18th.  Many of you have probably already seen the video that captured the highlight of the day–and, some might say, one of the most memorable moments in MAWS’ history.   Thanks to a good deal of behind-the-scenes finagling by our fabulous lobbyist, Amber Ulvenes, we got to sit in the House gallery and witness the unanimous vote in support of HB 2016, which would give midwives and doulas access to WA State prisons to provide voluntary prenatal and postpartum care.  Several legislators spoke from the floor and sang the praises of the midwives who’d been there for the births of their babies or grandbabies. Then, the Speaker Pro Tempore asked us to stand, and MAWS received a standing ovation from the entire WA State House of Representatives.  It was epic.

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Meanwhile, over in one of the Senate hearing rooms, MAWS President, Neva Gerke, was testifying on SB 6304, a bill that would guarantee continued funding in WA State for the CHIP program, which the federal government had threatened to de-fund. SB 6304 and its companion bill in the House, HB 2660, would not only ensure that all children in Washington would have healthcare coverage; it also would guarantee prenatal care coverage for all childbearing people in the state.  Both SB 6304 and HB 2660 are moving forward in their respective chambers.

In addition to talking about these bills with members and their aides, we asked for support for an amendment to the budget proviso that passed last year, maintaining the cap on the midwifery licensing fee.  Since 2009, when this fee cap went into effect, the licensed midwifery workforce in Washington has grown by 40%. Due to misinformation that we received last year from the Department of Health, the amount we’d requested from the legislature during the 2017 session was insufficient to cover the shortfall in the Midwifery Program budget at the DOH. For the most part, members were very receptive to our request that an additional $50,000 be allocated this year to fulfill on the intention of the proviso. To our surprise, Senator Fortunato (yes, that’s really his name) decided after meeting with several of his constituents, that we shouldn’t have to come back every year and ask for a budget proviso to keep our licensing fee reasonable.  So, he has introduced SB 6559 which would essentially put the midwifery fee cap into statute.  Although it’s unlikely that the bill will go forward this session, it is encouraging that we have some support for a more permanent fix to our licensing fee issue.

We also spent time in our meetings with legislators seeding the concept of title protection for birth centers, sharing the legislative language we have drafted to protect the terms “birth center,” “birthing center,” and “childbirth center” in statute, and conveying the thoughtful process we are engaging in with other stakeholders, including the WA State Hospital Association (WSHA).  The rationale for this effort is two-fold: 1) to protect consumers – we believe that families choosing a birth center for their care should be able to know what kind of care is actually offered in such a facility and what kinds of outcomes are achieved there; and 2) to preserve the integrity of the birth center model of care.  The WSHA representatives we spoke with prior to session indicated that they understand our concerns, but they asked MAWS to wait until 2019 to introduce a bill so that they could have time to educate their members about the rationale for such legislation and give hospitals an opportunity to voluntarily re-brand as necessary.  We agreed to do so—and heard from quite a few legislators how much they appreciated this collaborative approach.

Sen. Fortunato, however, was highly motivated to take action this year and decided to drop SB 6579.  Although it is not at all likely that the bill will get a hearing this session, according to Sen. Fortunato introducing the bill this session conveys to WSHA and their members that MAWS is serious about this effort and that we have legislative support.

READ ON FOR MORE CHAPTER UPDATES HERE

Understanding and Reducing Maternal Stress and Preterm Birth in Puerto Rico, 2018 Webinars

In the November 2017 NACPM webinar, RE:BIRTH: Navigating and Mediating Maternal Stress and Birth Outcomes in Pre- and Post-Hurricane Puerto Rico, Oregon State University researchers Holly Horan and Melissa Cheyney discussed their collaborative research that focuses on the relationship between perceived maternal stress and gestational age at delivery. Existing research hypothesizes an association between perceived maternal stress and preterm birth, and midwifery care has been shown to be the only viable solution to reducing preterm birth rates within communities of color. Horan and Cheyney collaborated with Puerto Rican maternal and infant health providers to develop a project to better understand experiences of maternal stress and pregnancy and how they relate to birth outcomes in Puerto Rico.

Gaps in the Epidemiological Data: Over the last 20 years, epidemiological data on birth outcomes in Puerto Rico indicate that this United States (US) colony has a high rate of preterm birth1 in addition to other poor birth outcomes, including elevated cesarean section (46%)2 and a low birthweight rates#. As of 2016, Puerto Rico had an unusually high rate of preterm birth (11.5%), occurring before 34 weeks completed gestation2. To date, researchers have been unable to explain why Puerto Rico is experiencing such a high rate of preterm birth, as studies specific to Puerto Rico argue that typical epidemiological factors associated with preterm birth rates in the continental US do not explain the high rate of preterm birth on the island1.

Investigating the Gaps: After completing a 2014 pilot study on Puerto Rican providers’ perspectives on maternal and infant health issues on the island, Cheyney and Horan developed a two-phase research project designed to explore how perceptions of maternal stress contribute to gestational age at delivery in Puerto Rico. In the first phase, beginning in August of 2016, 25 pregnant and recently postpartum women in Puerto Rico were interviewed about their experiences of stress during pregnancy to provide a context for stress that was unique to island. In December of 2016, the second phase was initiated to understand the relationship between maternal perceptions of stress, their biological experiences of stress via the hormone cortisol collected from a hair sample, and how these experiences of stress impacted gestational age at delivery. Horan and local, Puerto Rican research assistants traveled to two clinical sites where they invited pregnant people in their first trimester to participate. Pregnant individuals who volunteered and were verbally consented into the study agreed to one prenatal visit per trimester. At the prenatal visits, the participants completed two stress surveys and provided a hair cortisol sample. In addition, there was a postpartum visit where the participant provided patient reported outcomes about the birth, completed a postpartum interview reflecting on their experiences of stress and pregnancy, and provided a final maternal and infant hair sample. Eighty-six participants were recruited for this second phase of the project.

Disaster Strikes: On September 20th, 2017, the project was abruptly halted due to the damages sustained after Hurricane Maria. Horan and Cheyney plan to finish data collection with as many of the remaining participants as can be relocated to complete their postpartum data collection visit. This will enable us to understand how the hurricane influenced their births and early parenting experiences. Preliminary findings indicate that despite the global community’s concerns about the Zika virus, poverty and colonization are significantly greater sources of stress for pregnant and recently postpartum participants in Puerto Rico. In addition, the events of Hurricane Maria have further exposed how the second-class citizen status of Puerto Rican people impacts health and well-being across the island and across social statuses.

References
1) Cordero J. Preterm Births in Puerto Rico 2006-2016. March of Dimes: Sunshine Seminar. 2016. https://progyn.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/6.-Dr.-Jose-Cordero-Sunshine-MOD.pdf. Accessed November 6th, 2017.

2) Hamilton B, Martin J, Osterman M, Driscoll A. Births: Provisional Data for 2016. NVSS Vital Statistics Rapid Release. June 2017; 2: 2-21. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/report002.pdf. Accessed October 25th, 2017.

3) Landale N, Oropesa S, Davila AL. Puerto Rican Maternal and Infant Health Study (PRMIHS), 1994-1995. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor]. n.d. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36238.v2. Accessed November 27th, 2017.

FIND NEWS ON UPCOMING WEBINARS IN OUR NEWSLETTER

Reproductive Health and the LBGTQIA Community

The LGBTQIA community is as diverse as the country, and includes members of all races, ethnicities, religions and socioeconomic status, and yet the health needs of this community are frequently overlooked, often with dire consequences. This week’s newsletter presents the issue of LGBTQIA health, resources for health care providers as well as tomorrow’s webinar on Gender, Equity and Inclusion

READ MORE AND REGISTER HERE