The lack of licensure for CPMs in Virginia means that families that desire home birth face a crisis situation in which they often cannot find a trained midwife. Our son was born at home when we lived in Michigan two years ago. With a home delivery, I avoided complications that can occur in the hospital. Medical textbooks emphasize the importance of relaxation when giving birth, yet the hospital environment is often not relaxing, contributing to slowed or stalled labors. Interventions such as labor-inducing drugs or Caesarean sections are then necessary.
Infections are also rampant in the hospital.
One friend and her baby caught a staph infection that kept them hospitalized for an extra week. Virginia is one of nine states in which CPMs cannot practice legally. Del. Philip Hamilton is working to change this situation by sponsoring a bill to license CPMs. Let's support his efforts, because women in Virginia deserve the childbirth options that women in most other states enjoy. Home-birth families are tired of waiting for the system to work for us while nobody in the system seems to be doing a darn thing to address this issue beyond trotting out the medical lobby each year to impugn our good judgment and commitment to our children.