Midwives Alliance of Pennsylvania...

I just wanted to alert all of you out there in the land of blogs about the Midwives Alliance of Pennsylvania. I am the Northeastern Region's representative to this group, and we are trying to get legislation passed similar to what Massachusetts is putting through their congress. We are hoping to get a midwifery board in place for Pennsylvania, and make licensure available to CPM's who work here in PA.

http://www.pamidwivesalliance.org/

A few myths that keep being passed around by the folks at ACOG about CPM's need to be addressed also. A CPM is not "just" a lay midwife. Lay implies untrained and unskilled. This could not be further from the truth (and quite frankly, I know some amazingly talented and great "lay" midwives who are not CPMs, but I digress).

ACOG has erroneously misinformed the public by stating that CPM's only have to attend 20 births to be a midwife. Again, not true.

To become a CPM it is is long process. 20 births as an active participant (not just observing), 20 births as a primary under supervision, 20 postpartum exams as primary, 20 newborn exams as primary, 75 prenatal exams as primary, a total of 1350 clinical hours, a 45 page checklist of hands on skills that must be signed off on by a senior midwife, three letters of recomendation, informed consent, practice guidelines, and handouts developed by the student midwife have to be done, and all of this has to be submitted to the North American Registry of midwives before you proceed to part two of the PEP (portfolio evaluation process). Part two is where you then have to have your hands on skills checked again by a different midwife than one that you have already worked with, either in a QE exam, or by completing a seven page checklist with an approved CPM. After you have done this and passed, you send that in to NARM along with a letter with an intent to take the CPM exam. Then you get to take your exam a few months later, an exam which takes 8 hours to complete and is exhaustive about prenatal, birth, postpartum, and well woman and well newborn care.

IF, and only IF you complete all of this, are you then a CPM. Does this sound like an untrained, unskilled person to attend a low risk homebirth? Certainly not. Also, many CPM's acquire much more birth experience than what is required by NARM, but do not submit all of the births that they have attended, just what is asked of them to submit. Also, for one reason or another some of those births may not "count" according to NARM guidelines.

It just makes my blood boil when I see these lies posted by ACOG, which by the way, is not a college at all, but a trade organization.