Thursday 12/20/2007 DAILY NEWS DIGEST
Mobile Press-Register - Alabama Legal Services cuts staff, eyes other cuts as funding dwindles.
Mobile Press-Register - Changes by Alabama Bar and Supreme Court to boost revenues for civil legal services for low-income individuals.
Mobile Press-Register - Press-Register says that the only surprise about the looming crisis in education funding is that it didn’t appear earlier.
Montgomery Advertiser - Teacher pay raise unlikely for ‘09 budget, AEA to focus on maintaining funding for benefits.
Montgomery Advertiser - Richard Dorrough, Commissioner of Department of Children’s Affairs, dies following battle with cancer.
Tuscaloosa News - State’s prisons and jails becoming de facto mental health facilities, DOC Commissioner says state is ‘criminalizing mental illness.’
Tuscaloosa News - Driver of former postsecondary chancellor pleads guilty to obstruction of justice.
Gadsden Times - Gadsden manufacturer to close, 170 to lose jobs.
Gadsden Times - Ag Commissioner left out of agricultural panel appointed by Governor.
Decatur Daily - Alabama senator draws ire from Georgia counterparts after inserting language in huge spending bill that blocks updates to manuals that guide water rights in region.
Anniston Star - The Anniston Star says that Alabama should follow lead of New Jersey, abolish death penalty.
Washington Post - Summary of Wednesday’s year-end congressional actions.
FROM TODAY’S ANNISTON STAR:
Midwifery isn’t dead in Alabama
By Markeshia Ricks
Star Capitol Correspondent
12-20-2007
MONTGOMERY — Certified professional midwives in Alabama are like the Rodney Dangerfield of health care — they just can’t get any respect.
That’s because it’s illegal for them to practice in this state.
Their status could all change if the Legislature passes a bill to recognize certified professional midwives and make that a credential for licensure in Alabama.
“We’ve been working on legislation for 10 years, but last year was the first year that we got anywhere,” said Jennifer Crook Moore, a certified professional midwife from Birmingham who is a member of the Alabama Birth Coalition, a grassroots advocacy organization that supports greater access to natural childbirth
Last year, State Rep. Laura Hall, D-Huntsville, sponsored legislation that would have allowed certified professional midwives to practice legally in the state, but the bill never made it out of committee.
During this month’s meeting of the Alabama House Task Force on Poverty, Hall said that she would bring the legislation back during the upcoming session.
“It’s about offering women a choice,” she said.
Midwifery isn’t dead in Alabama.
The state recognizes certified nurse midwives, but those are nurses who have been additionally trained as midwives. They work in hospitals.
Certified professional midwives have been trained and certified in the practice of midwifery and work outside hospitals, which raises big red flags with Alabama’s medical community.
Dr. Tom Miller, assistant state health officer, said the Department of Public Health opposes legalizing certified professional midwives in the state because of concerns about training and a midwife’s ability to handle the unpredictability of even healthy pregnancies.
“Even a labor that is flowing in a routine manner has the potential to turn south and be catastrophic,” said Miller, who is also an obstetrician/gynecologist. “We just cannot feel comfortable that the quality and training is such that we can accept out-of-hospital delivery.”
Alabama didn’t always take such a staunch position against non-hospital births.
In fact starting in the 1920s and into the mid-1970s, the Department of Public Health licensed and provided training for what were then called lay-midwives.
Miller said he believes that the program was phased out because of the same concerns that the department has with legalizing certified professional midwives.
Though Alabama’s rural communities remain underserved medically, particularly in the area of gynecology and obstetrics, the department is not convinced that legalizing certified professional midwives is the way to go.
Moore said nationwide the shift from homebirths to hospitals began in the 1940s, and somewhere along the way midwives lost their reputation for safety.
“When I go to Montgomery and talk to legislators to say, ‘I’m illegal,” people will say ‘I was born at home, or I remember when my brother was born at home,’” she said. “We’ve been maligned as being dirty and filthy and uneducated, but the bottom line is that midwives are trained to handle normal pregnancy and if someone has a medical condition outside the parameters of that I wouldn’t take them as a client.”
Moore said she hopes studies such as one on the outcomes for mothers who had planned home births using certified professional midwives will change some minds this year.
The study, which was published in the “British Medical Journal,” found that North American mothers who used a certified professional midwife to deliver at home had lower raters of medical intervention, but similar rates of infant mortality as mothers who delivered in hospitals.
“I’ll be the first to say that medicine is better, but for a normal pregnancy I’d go to task with someone,” on whether a hospital is the best place to give birth, she said.
Richard Dorrough, Commissioner of Department of Children’s Affairs, was a very good man. RIP.
Comment by OldCloverdale — December 20, 2007 @ 3:22 pm
Alabama families deserve the right to have midwives attend their births!
Go Rep. Hall!
Comment by Stacy — January 14, 2008 @ 1:22 pm
Dr. Tom Miller is quoted as saying: “We just cannot feel comfortable that the quality and training is such that we can accept out-of-hospital delivery.”
Why is it up to him? Or to other doctors? Many women are CHOOSING to birth at home, and sometimes they’d rather do that by themselves rather than put themselves in the hands of the doctors. They have varying reasons for their decisions, but if they choose to give birth at home, do doctors have the right to deny them access to the attendant of their choice, even if it is a midwife? Midwives today are better trained, and more educated than at any time in history. Their care is compassionate and respectful. And safe. There are a number of good studies to demonstrate the safety of homebirth with midwives, and there are also plenty of statistics that demonstrate that non-midwifery care is becoming increasing dangerous. The U.S. is next to the bottom of the developed countries as far as our maternal mortality rates go. Statewide, our cesarean rates are more than 1 in 3, and 50% in some hospitals. That’s safe? That is what the doctor’s want to protect us from? No, thank you. I’ve done the research. I would rather take my chances with the midwives, legal or illegal. Legal would be better.
Comment by Terri LaPoint — January 16, 2008 @ 10:58 pm
It stinks that midwives of any stripe — and normal birth — aren’t readily available in Alabama.
The paradigm is that if something goes wrong, someone must be blamed. If the good doctor examined the outcomes of O.L. Logan and M. C. Smith, who practiced midwifery (with a high risk population) without so much as a blood pressure cuff, he’d have no choice but to conclude that it is, indeed, a safe alternative for most women who seek it.
I am left with no choice but to conclude that the powers that be are not concerned so much with public health but in maintaining control and keeping their pockets lined.
Comment by Mom of Many — January 25, 2008 @ 6:58 pm