Bill will expand access to midwifery care and out-of-hospital birth options
The package passed unanimously by the Massachusetts House on June 20 includes provisions to create a pathway to licensure for Certified Professional Midwives and to instruct the Department of Public Health (DPH) to update and revise the regulations that govern freestanding birth centers in the state.
Read MoreMay 5 is the annual International Day of the Midwife. We love and celebrate midwives this day and every day! Thank you midwives, for all you do to care for us.
Read More“Massachusetts Midwives Push for a Licensing Plan” was the front page headline in the Boston Globe on April 27, 2024. Globe reporter Diti Kholi highlights the important role of midwives, and the lack of a licensure pathway in Massachusetts for the certified professional midwives who attend nearly all home births and are 50% of the national workforce for birth centers. Read the article.
Read MoreAmerican College of Nurse Midwives-MA, Bay State Birth Coalition, and Neighborhood Birth Center Thank Administration For Their Leadership & Urge Quick Implementation of Recommendations
Maternal health practitioners and reproductive rights supporters applaud Governor Healey’s release this week of reports and recommendations regarding the state of maternal health care and essential services in the Commonwealth. The recommendations laid out in the report, if implemented fully, would result in a marked increase in access to maternal health care across Massachusetts. We particularly thank the Administration for prioritizing the following critical recommendations: (1) Updated regulations governing birth centers to better align with national standards; (2) Equitable reimbursement for Certified Nurse Midwives (CNMs); and (3) Support for integration of Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) into more pregnancy and birth care settings and coverage for such care in Massachusetts.
Read MoreOn October 5, maternal health and reproductive equity groups joined together at the State House to advocate for legislation to expand access to midwives in Massachusetts. Approximately one hundred parents, kids, midwives, nurses, students, community leaders, advocates, and legislators gathered for a powerful rally on the State House steps. Afterwards, supporters and lawmakers gathered inside the State House for a presentation and panel discussion on the value and importance of midwifery care.
Co-hosted by Neighborhood Birth Center, Bay State Birth Coalition, ACNM Massachusetts, NACPM Massachusetts, Reproductive Equity Now, MassNOW, ACLU, Our Bodies Ourselves, Mystic Valley Action for Reproductive Justice, City of Boston Office of Women’s Advancement, Birth Equity & Justice Massachusetts, Center for Black Maternal Health and Reproductive Justice at Tufts Medical School, and the Massachusetts PPD Fund.
Read MoreSeptember 14-20, 2023 marks the first ever Birth Center Week, an event started by the national non-profit Birth Center Equity to "celebrate and elevate the impact and potential of birth centers, with a focus on community birth centers that provide safe, culturally-reverent, midwifery-led health care for all." We are celebrating Massachusetts birth centers past, present, and future.
Read MoreIn May, the Massachusetts Senate passed a budget that included unprecedented state funding for birth centers. Senator Liz Miranda’s amendment passed unanimously to provide $1M for the development and operation of nonprofit freestanding birth centers like Neighborhood Birth Center and other community based maternal health organizations. In addition, $150K was allocated to Seven Sisters Birth Center to support their doula program. In August, Governor Maura Healey signed the budget into law.
Read MoreFollow us on Instagram @baystatebirth and check out our Reels to see the recordings of our Live conversations from Black Maternal Health Week.
A conversation with State Senator Liz Miranda
A conversation with State Representative Brandy Fluker Oakley
Discussion of the new art exhibit honoring the foremothers of gynecology with Lilly Marcelin of Resilient Sisterhood Project
Tiffany Vassell, a labor and delivery nurse, left a Boston hospital two days early after giving birth to her son seven months ago, exhausted by what she described as inadequate care that forced the Black maternal health advocate to relentlessly protect her and her baby’s wellbeing.
As her unborn child went into distress for 10 minutes, Vassell herself watched the heart rate monitor, instructing a nurse to not increase a medication used to induce contractions.
And Vassell halted a frenzied recommendation about an emergency C-section, a procedure she later had to undergo to deliver her 10-pound baby, as she lobbied for a “very controlled atmosphere” to reduce the likelihood of infection. Vassell later had to request stronger painkillers — rather than the Motrin she was given — and heating pads as she complained of “excruciating pain” following the abdominal surgery.
Throughout her pregnancy, Vassell managed to make decisions for herself, backed by a maternal care team that extended well beyond the hospital to the home birth midwife and doula she’d hired out-of-pocket.
Read MoreA new editorial in the Boston Globe calls on the legislature to license certified professional midwives and state regulators to update birth center regulations.
Massachusetts politicians like to hold the Bay State up as a mecca of reproductive rights. Yet while pregnant people can choose whether to carry a baby to term, they have less choice in where to deliver that baby.
While Massachusetts has world-class hospitals — and 99 percent of births occur in a hospital — there is only one birth center, Seven Sisters in Northampton. The North Shore Birth Center, run by Beverly Hospital, closed in December, while the Cambridge Health Alliance-affiliated Cambridge Birth Center closed when COVID-19 hit and never reopened. With nearly 400 birth centers nationally, Massachusetts’ single birth center makes the state an outlier. It is a problem for a state that prides itself on high-quality care but struggles with high health care costs…
There are steps Massachusetts policy makers should take to make birth centers more financially viable. The Department of Public Health should rewrite its regulations to better suit the care modern birth centers provide. The Legislature should allow the licensing of certified professional midwives, a class of childbirth professionals who could expand the workforce.
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