Midwifery Legislation update

I know, I know, all this midwifery stuff is so exciting. Just thought I'd give ya'll a synopsis of what's been going on. I've been busy up the capitol all week, it's sort of exhausting but fun.

Midwives never wanted to be licensed by the state. They were being prosecuted and one midwife was told she had to choose between her LDS temple recommend or her midwifery practice (they were accused of practicing medicine without a license - a felony in Utah). She left her midwifery practice and pursued the bill to legalize midwifery in Utah. It would have been lovely to have stayed under the radar - had they not been threatened with jail time and loss of religious privileges.

Sen. Dayton's comments about not adhering to regulations is totally false. Midwives have a long and proven track record and were being monitored and have much better outcomes than physicians in Utah (this is true over the whole world actually). She and the UMedA are using scare tactics and false information (attributing deaths and other catastrophes to midwives - totally unfounded which you can see in DOPL's stats).

The bill affects ALL midwives - licensed and unlicensed. They already have rules and regulations in place and DOPL (dept of occupational and professional licensing) is keeping track of the midwives and maintaining statistics and outcomes and they are excellent.

The biggest problem with the bill being passed out of the senate was that the senators were under the mistaken impression that this was a"compromise" bill between the Utah Medical Association (which is the group behind the bill) and the LDEM's (licensed direct entry midwives).

At the Senate committee meeting the UMedA was admonished to stop wasting everyone's time and work something out with the midwives.They met and after a number of hours they agreed on many points. The UMedA told them they would draft the bill and have the LDEM's review it before they submitted it to the Senate. Instead they wrote their own new bill that effectively risks out at least 96% of all clients. They snuck the bill into the Senate without notifying the midwives.

This bill removes parents rights that have been guaranteed elsewhere in statute. If this bill passes it will mean that a group of surgeons that don't understand normal or natural birth have forced women into medically managed hospitals - many of them forced into surgery.

The group Utah Friends of Midwives has more information about this and you can join their email group:

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/UtahfriendsofMidwives/