Third party payors, small businesses, labor unions and families without health insurance are all struggling with the spiraling costs of health care in our country. In the area of maternity care, research has shown that midwives offer quality care at significantly less cost. Studies have consistently shown that midwives use less medications, electronic fetal monitoring and episiotomy than do physicians. Additionally, midwifery clients experience fewer cesarean sections. Consequently, all charges, including length of hospital stay, are significantly reduced.
Midwives spend more time to provide education, information and social support to their clients.
All of these factors have been cited as significant contributors to reducing adverse outcomes, especially prematurity and low birthweight, for which our entire society pays a high price. Therefore malpractice insurance premiums for midwives have averaged one-sixth the cost of policies for physicians. In many other countries, where midwives are the primary maternity care providers, it would be considered an expensive misuse of limited health care resources for physicians to routinely care for healthy pregnant women. In our country, a shift to training more midwives and fewer obstetricians would save an enormous amount of money. These potential savings are shown in the following table.