11/07/2025
This is a conversation that I have almost every day.
Did you know that the United States has the highest maternal mortality rates among high-income nations? Coincidentally, we also have not systematically integrated midwives into our healthcare system like other wealthy countries, where midwives are the primary providers of maternity care. What we have instead is a system that amplifies obstetrical providers who specialize in surgery and rarely witness physiological birth. We rely on intervention above intuition.
Another contributing factor to our poor mortality rates, ironically, is that we are considered the most litigious country regarding maternity care among other developed nations. Our current system protects doctors more than families and prioritizes defending lawsuits rather than promoting shared decision making. Healthcare providers are trained to look at screens instead of listening to mothers. We have limited laws to protect parents from obstetric violence and many laws that limit midwifery care and our inclusion within this system. Our grassroots efforts pale in comparison to well funded insurance companies, hospital associations, and obstetrical organizations who lobby against our efforts to improve birth every year in Annapolis.
In the US we practice a medical model of maternity care that leads to higher interventions and higher consequences. These interventions are not improving outcomes. Do you know what improves outcomes? MIDWIVES. Midwifery-led care promotes increased vaginal deliveries, decreased cesarean surgeries, better neonatal outcomes, reduced episiotomies, less assisted deliveries (vacuum and forceps), better nutritional counseling, healthier pregnancies, more shared decision making and education, centers patient empowerment and increases overall satisfaction. This is your baby, these should be your choices, and this whole process should be tailored to support mothers and babies. 🎤🎤🎤
I am so grateful to see this headline in NYT, but this conversation can't simply be trending for a week. We need to keep talking and keep sharing. It is unfair that this is the reality of our nation's maternal healthcare system, and so many don't realize until they are the subject of the abuse and poor outcomes that plague our community. Women and families deserve better!
Decades of research have shown that round-the-clock fetal monitoring does not reliably predict fetal distress, and experts say it leads to many unnecessary surgeries. But it’s still used in nearly every birth in the U.S. because of business and legal concerns, a New York Times investigation found. https://nyti.ms/3WF7yLx
