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In a world where health care often feels impersonal, the midwifery model of care stands out as personalized, compassionate care that can significantly impact the well-being of mothers and their children. As research consistently shows, when midwives are integrated into the health care system, children and families thrive.
Midwives partner with their patients to provide comprehensive reproductive education, fertility guidance, birthing support, nutrition advice and quality infant care. Their holistic approach to pregnancy and birth views these events as normal life processes rather than medical conditions, leading to longer, more educational care visits that give expectant mothers more information, autonomy and freedom across their experience in pregnancy, the birthing process and infant care.
The benefits of using a midwife are numerous and well-documented. Research consistently shows that integrating midwives into maternal care leads to higher patient satisfaction, better clinical outcomes for parents and infants and reduced healthcare costs. Furthermore, midwife-led care is linked to fewer cesarean sections, lower rates of preterm births and episiotomies, increased breastfeeding success and an enhanced sense of respect and autonomy for patients.
Moreover, midwives play a crucial role in effectively improving health outcomes for mothers and babies facing greater challenges during pregnancy, childbirth and infancy. Research indicates that in states with higher midwifery integration, families experience better health outcomes, including Black families who typically face worse disparities on multiple maternal and child health measures. By providing culturally congruent care, midwives can help bridge the gap in health care access and quality that data shows disproportionately affects communities of color.
Despite its clear benefits, many families in the United States face significant challenges in accessing midwifery care due to structural barriers within the health care system. To overcome these obstacles and ensure more families can benefit, several policy solutions have been proposed:
- Workforce Pipeline: Midwifery is, by nature, an apprentice training program. As a result of inadequate funding for midwifery training programs and difficulty in finding preceptors to train midwife students, there has not been growth in midwifery training programs. We need dedicated funding to expand the capacity of midwifery programs, compensating midwife preceptors (who are currently not compensated financially for training midwife students), and to help midwife students pay for the education they need to practice. Additionally, when midwifery programs encourage the recruitment of a population of students who reflect the communities served, including families who benefit most from midwifery care, this helps address health professional shortages and creates a more culturally aligned workforce for birthing families.
- Independent Practice: States could adopt licensing processes based on education and certification, rather than requiring midwives to have contracts with physicians. This would enable midwives to practice more freely and expand their reach.
- Parity in Reimbursement: Midwifery would expand as a practice if midwives received the same reimbursement rates as physicians for providing identical services, including changing state regulations so that midwives receive 100% of physician fees from Medicaid. This would make it financially viable for more practices to hire midwives, increasing access for families.
- Independent Admitting Privileges: Granting midwives the ability to independently admit and discharge patients in hospitals would significantly expand their scope of practice and ability to provide continuous care.
- Increased Integration: States with higher midwifery integration consistently show better maternal and infant health outcomes. If policymakers work to increase the percentage of midwife-attended births across all states, the result will be better birth outcomes for children and families.
- Expanding Services in Areas of High Need: With data demonstrating ongoing challenges in outcomes for mothers and babies, particularly for those facing significant racial disparities, policies specifically targeting the expansion of midwifery services in underserved communities would help reduce persistent disparities and better ensure mothers and infants have healthy experiences and results during birth and the first year of life.
Policy changes would create an environment where the practice of midwifery grows and more children have the opportunity to thrive from the very beginning of their lives. The evidence is clear: when midwives are empowered to practice to the full extent of their training, families benefit and communities grow stronger.
As we look to the future of maternal and child health in the United States, it’s crucial that we recognize the vital role midwives play. By supporting and expanding midwifery care, we’re not just improving birth outcomes – we’re investing in the health and well-being of future generations. We look to a future where every family who wants it has access to the compassionate, skilled care that midwives provide, ensuring more children thrive from their very first breath.
Explore videos and stories demonstrating the beauty and unity that accompany birth. Experience this sacred rite of passage through the eyes of birth workers and the families they serve in Alaska, Mexico and New Mexico.
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