SM - Newsletter

May News from Midwives Care, Inc.

Clinical services at Midwives Care, Inc ended on April 30, 2006. This was a blow to all of us on the staff, board, and in the community. However, although we deeply feel the loss of this option, we are now beginning to look ahead. We are starting to re-focus our efforts to education and advocacy, in hopes of increasing the options in women's health and maternity care for families in our area. Below are notes from the staff, the board, and the community. Keep your eye out for future emails, and keep checking our website at www.midwivescare.com to learn more about what happens next!

From Leah, Jackie, Stephanie, Gail, Pam, and Brenda:

The International Midwives Day Celebration was a beautiful and touching event. A million thanks to the talented planners and all the families who attended! We are forever grateful for your love and support.

Amidst the turmoil and sadness of closing, we are also experiencing much heartfelt gratitude for each of you, and for your kind words and gifts. In fact, the last 20 years have been a gift. You cannot imagine the rewards that come with this type of work-of getting to really know a woman, to see and be with her through the work and transitions of her life, and to have so many meaningful relationships.

So, with this in mind, we wish to thank you--for it is the passion and determination and trust of women that have been our teachers through the years. We could not have done it without you!!!

Many blessings on each of you! May our paths cross again!

From the Board:

We will be celebrating the past 20 years of relationships between our community and our midwives - as well as the birth of our brand new advocacy organization!

We are providing some burgers and vegetarian alternatives, as well as buns, condiments, and some basic drinks. We ask that you bring a casserole, salad, or dessert to share. If you have any questions, please contact Gretchen Finniff at 513-288-5033 or send an email to gretchen.finniff@usbank.com.

There will be activities for the children.

Please visit our website at www.midwivescare.com for updated information as we get closer to the event. We will detail the location as well as activities.

A heartfelt thank you to Peg Conway...

for her touching article about the closing of Midwives Care in the Cincinnati Enquirer on May 4th. The text of the article is below. If you would like to make YOUR opinion heard about midwives / maternity options / women's health care, we encourage you to submit a letter to the editor. You can mail a letter to The Cincinnati Enquirer, Letters to the Editor, 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202, or submit it on-line at letters@enquirer.com. Letters must be 100 words or less.

International Midwives Day on May 5 should be an official day of mourning in Cincinnati this year. The April 30 closure of the Midwives Care practice here after 20 years deserves at least that recognition. I'm grateful for the chance to have had one more appointment before the elimination of this vital option in women's health care.It's so painful to contemplate not returning to the yellow Victorian house in Northside for gynecological care. Hard to imagine not being greeted by midwife Jackie Gruer in the sunny, high-ceilinged foyer before she talks me through the clinical part of the visit.It feels like a punch in the gut. A lifeline has been cut. An oasis has gone dry. And it's not just here; midwifery practices around the country are closing. It's a clear wake-up call to the harsh realities of health care economics and childbirth in this country.

Skyrocketing malpractice insurance costs were a key factor in the demise of Midwives Care. From 2004 to 2006, their premiums more than tripled. They pursued every possible avenue to survive, from converting to nonprofit status to holding fundraisers. Liability costs hit nurse-midwives like Gruer doubly hard, because they must practice with a collaborating physician who incurs additional liability by entering into such an arrangement. But without the physician, nurse-midwives cannot legally practice.

Midwives long have been heralded for providing lower-cost maternity care, with fewer surgical deliveries and other interventions. But in the current environment, these strengths evidently are detriments, since hospitals receive significantly less revenue for a vaginal birth than a Caesarean section. It's only logical that hospitals would act to ensure their own survival, though at the expense of woman-centered care.

Our culture's fundamental distrust of childbirth only exacerbates liability and other financial issues, and it's difficult to say whether this distrust is a cause or a result. We are losing sight of birth as a normal life event. Though birth usually occurs within the medical system, it is not pathological. Perhaps if attitudes about birth itself could be changed, the other aspects would fall into place. Jackie Gruer, in her inimitable way, hopes to make that happen by evolving Midwives Care into an education and advocacy organization. If anybody can do it, she can. I wish her my heartfelt best.

Peg Conway and her husband, Joe, are the parents of three children, all born with midwives. They live in Amberley Village.