Welcome to the Home Birth and Midwives
Support Network for Illinois

Do you think the intimate decisions of how you birth where you birth with whom you birth should be left up to you? The state of Illinois doesn't think so!

Is Homebirth really safe?

What kinds of Midwives are there?

What is the Midwifery Model of Care?

Why wouldn't I want to go to a hospital for labor and delivery?

Why is Illinois trying to shut down the practices of its Certified Professional Midwives???

We will answer these and other questions in the pages to follow.

>>Click here to go to our Table of Contents<<

By citing the vague and overly-broad language in the Medical Practices Act, the Department of Professional Regulation of the state of Illinois (DPR) took action against four Illinois Midwives in Early August, 1997 and issued an injunction against an Illinois CPM Midwife in March of 1998.

This discrimination MUST STOP! It is an essential freedom of individuals to decide where birthing will take place, and who will be present. It is not the state's responsibility to ensure the well being of a family. Rather, it is the parents' responsibility to decide what is right for their families.

February, 1999 ...
I am reorganizing the structure of these pages.
Please pardon our dust over the next several weeks.

Since August, 1997

we have had hits on this page.

Excerpts from a letter to the Ohio Direct-Entry Midwifery Council
by Marsden Wagner, MD, MSPH
March 1997

• Midwives are the safest health professional to assist normal women.
• The [Western European] countries mentioned above with the lowest perinatal mortality rates, use direct entry midwives...Clearly non-nurse midwifery is perfectly safe.
• In the past 25 years there have been large numbers of research studies looking at home birth, many from the US, and in every case [planned] home birth was shown to be as safe, and in some cases, safer than hospital birth.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
and a few select links

!!ALERT!!!
Midwifery licensure Legislation for 1999 in Illinois
Additional sponsors needed
(Replublican sponsorship sought)

!!ALERT!!!

The Safety Issue

• Safety of home birth - abstracts, direct links to Medical Journals, and referenced articles
• Response to Illinois State Medical Society.
• Risks associated with medical interventions during labor - links to reference pages
• Hospital Acquired Infections Worsen
• Why are American women dying in childbirth - an article by Marsden Wagner
• What exactly do midwives do?
• What about emergencies? (check back)

In the News

• Injunction issued to Illinois CPM Midwife
• Latest coverage; what's NEW in the news? (check back)
• Go to our Press Coverage page.
• How can we better educate the media?
• CPM Midwife arrested in North Carolina
• Obstetrical maneuver named after midwife!

Activism

• Stop the Witch Hunt
• National Professional Certified Midwives Guild - midwives unionize!
• Where to write in Illinois
• What else can I do to help out?
• Citizens for Midwifery - a national group
• Contact us.

Legal Issues and History

• Nikki Zollar, director of Dept. of Professional Regulation (DPR) claims law is "an overresponse."
• Dept. of Professional Regulation (DPR) fails at primary obligation -- state audit find that bad doctors still practicing; state senator calls DPR's results "disgusting."
• State targets Illinois Midwives - DPR ignores bad doctors and wastes taxpayer money running undercover investigations against midwives with NO complaints or bad outcomes.
• ISMS railroads Medical Practices Act through Legislature Doctors' lobbying group speeds medical legislation (the law that regulates their disciplinary body, the DPR) through committee and both the state house and senateone year early and in only TWO DAYS without the normal review!
• Illinois OFFICIALLY recognizes Direct Entry Midwives
• Illinois' Shameful history of midwifery
• Timeline of recent events in Illinois
• What U.S. state lawmakers are reading about Midwifery - an inaccurate and misleading article from Governing Magazine
• Discrimination Against Midwives - from Harvard Student Portfolio Writings
• Minnesota Parent -- The History of Midwifery

Miscellaneous

• Why some families have chosen homebirth [submissions most welcome]
• Links page [suggestions most welcome]
• Songs for Labor
• What if there were NO midwives?

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These pages were designed by Colette Bernhard Lehrer, a homebirth mother of two.

(((((A special thanks to Dave!)))))

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