I'm a midwife. Babies and mamas are so important to my existence and I'm PASSIONATE about their safety.
I'm not, however, licensed to practice midwifery in my state because our state laws are, well, unfriendly. I could, theoretically, be licensed, but I'm not sure it'll ever really happen and if it does, it will be some time in the (far?) future.
I live in a state with a high infant mortality rate. Very high...9.8-11% depending on what year you're looking at. Even more alarming is my CITY's rate: 32.7 per 1000 births. NEARLY THIRTY THREE! There is one zip code in our city in particular that has a rate of nearly 40.
We have a teaching hospital that according to a local OB graduate practices "vet med, not OB." And where the 47% c-section rate is justified by the staff because they work with high risk populations (the populations they serve are, not conicidentally, the same populations with the insanely high IMRs in our city
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I've known this for years and have had visions of an inner city birth center that provides free prenatal care on a walk-in basis and has midwives on staff 24/7 to attend births for our clients who have had prenatal care with us similar to the missionary birth center I visited during my training. I can't do that right now, though, because of the license thing. I really have a heart to do SOMETHING about this terribly atrocity, but I don't know what I CAN do. I stumbled upon this information about raising FIMR awareness in FL and would love to do something like this here, but where would I start? And how can I do it without ticking every OB in the teaching hospital off??
I really want to bring about CHANGE for the babies in this city. This has been brewing in my mind for two years now and I want to act on it!
I'm not, however, licensed to practice midwifery in my state because our state laws are, well, unfriendly. I could, theoretically, be licensed, but I'm not sure it'll ever really happen and if it does, it will be some time in the (far?) future.
I live in a state with a high infant mortality rate. Very high...9.8-11% depending on what year you're looking at. Even more alarming is my CITY's rate: 32.7 per 1000 births. NEARLY THIRTY THREE! There is one zip code in our city in particular that has a rate of nearly 40.
We have a teaching hospital that according to a local OB graduate practices "vet med, not OB." And where the 47% c-section rate is justified by the staff because they work with high risk populations (the populations they serve are, not conicidentally, the same populations with the insanely high IMRs in our city
.I've known this for years and have had visions of an inner city birth center that provides free prenatal care on a walk-in basis and has midwives on staff 24/7 to attend births for our clients who have had prenatal care with us similar to the missionary birth center I visited during my training. I can't do that right now, though, because of the license thing. I really have a heart to do SOMETHING about this terribly atrocity, but I don't know what I CAN do. I stumbled upon this information about raising FIMR awareness in FL and would love to do something like this here, but where would I start? And how can I do it without ticking every OB in the teaching hospital off??
I really want to bring about CHANGE for the babies in this city. This has been brewing in my mind for two years now and I want to act on it!
