Contact stakeholders about lack of access to maternity care NOW
There is a national force to end the criminalization of midwifery once and for all in every state of the nation. As women are being forced to crowd into hospitals overrun with a pandemic, without their doulas and sometimes even without their partner! This is a crime against humanity! Please read below to find out what you can do right now to bring this issue before the Georgia Department of Public Health and the COVID-19 Task Force.
We will not overlook the birthing people that are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the people that care for them- midwives. Whether serving in hospitals, birth centers, or homes, midwives are providing essential health care. Out of hospital midwives are experiencing an increase in demand for their care in community birth settings: homes and freestanding birth centers. Because Georgia law currently prohibits Certified Professional Midwives from being able to legally practice, there are not enough of us to meet the demand. Many women are left to birth at home, unassisted.
“Community birth in a pandemic supports the need to reduce the spread of disease through social distancing while preserving much-needed hospital capacity for lifesaving care of COVID-19 patients.”
Tamara Wrenn, Executive Director, & Emily Anesta, Board President
FAM
Unfortunately, the successful campaign to eradicate midwifery in Georgia means that birthing people who wish to avoid overrun hospitals during this pandemic have very few places to turn. The state of Georgia has provided women with an inadequate infrastructure that fails to deliver safe maternity care.
While nearly every other nation recognizes and upholds the value and legacy of the midwife, and the World Health Organization has designated 2020 as the year of the Nurse and the Midwife, Georgia stands out in our lack of access to midwives. Despite the overwhelming evidence of the excellent outcomes with midwifery-led care, Georgia has refused to acknowledge or allow midwives to practice to their full ability. Georgia stands as the worst leader- in maternal mortality and owes it to the mothers of Georgia to provide access to licensure to additional and desperately needed maternity care providers, Certified Professional Midwives.
We need a strong and persistent voice in Georgia: standing up for mothers, standing up for midwives.
The Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery has furnished a letter on behalf of US Citizens in any state, asking for midwifery to be decriminalized immediately. It was the Georgia Department of Public Health that held closed doors meetings to eradicate the out of hospital midwives servicing Georgia, and they need to hear from you!
HERE IS WHAT WE NEED YOU TO DO:
Pick a couple of points from this letter
And let the Georgia DOPH and other stakeholders know that women are currently choosing to birth at home alone and unassisted because they feel that the hospital is no longer a safe environment.
Include that licensing the Certified Professional Midwife would provide an infrastructure of providers already trained to provide the services that Georgia mothers so desperately need now. Be sure to mention that there is a bill calling for licensure for the Certified Professional Midwife- HB910 and we need their support!
candice.broce@georgia.gov, Director of Communications for the GA Coronavirus TaskForce,
ben.watson@senate.ga.gov, Chair of the Primary Care Physicians subcommittee on the Task Force,
Emily.Jones1@dph.ga.gov at the Georgia Department of Public Health
Again, this is an issue that affects all of us. Healthy births make healthy families, healthy families make healthy communities, healthy communities make a healthy world- which we so desperately desire now.
Thank you for your continued support,
NACPM-Georgia State Chapter