Do you believe that most births are a normal and safe process without the need for expensive obstetric technology?
Do you believe that women should have a choice of birth attendants and birth settings?
Join other physicians and midwives in supporting collaborative efforts to educate students, residents, physicians, and consumers regarding the Midwifery Model of Care.
THE MIDWIFERY MODEL OF CARE
The Midwifery Model of Care is based on the fact that pregnancy and birth are normal life events.
The Midwifery Model of Care includes:
Monitoring the physical, psychological, and social well-being of the mother throughout the childbearing cycle
Providing the mother with individualized education, counseling, and prenatal care
Continuous, hands-on assistance during labor and delivery and postpartum support
Minimizing technological interventions, and identifying and referring women who require obstetric attention.
The application of this woman-centered model has been proven to reduce the incidence of birth injury, trauma, and cesarean section.
MIDWIFERY VS PHYSICIAN EXPERTISE
Midwives are experts on normal birth; obstetricians are experts on difficult or surgical births. Midwives worldwide have an excellent record of safety with numerous studies associating midwifery care with excellent outcomes. In five nations with the world’s lowest infant mortality and lowest rates of technological intervention, midwives attend 70 percent of all births without a physician in the birth room. (World Health Organization).
From $13 billion to $20 billion a year could be saved in health care costs by developing midwifery care, demedicalizing childbirth, and encouraging breastfeeding. (Frank A. Oski, MD, Professor and Director of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore).
THE ROLE OF PfM
Physicians for Midwives supports the efforts of all who promote or put into practice this woman-centered, respectful, and holistic way of being with women during childbirth. PfM endorses the Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative of the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services (CIMS). Through its annual meeting at the Birth Gazette Conference and its representation at the annual conference of Midwives’ Alliance of North America, PfM strives to help make midwifery care available to all women.
Join Physicians for Midwives and receive our newsletter. You’ll find information about conferences, web-sites, the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services, as well as the Safe Motherhood Initiatives-USA. You’ll learn how you can make your hospital and community more midwife-friendly.
Types of midwives in United States
Membership form for Physicians For Midwifery