Dragonfly Birth

01/27/2026

HELP US INCREASE ACCESS TO MATERNITY CARE IN SOUTH DAKOTA!!!

As a member of the South Dakota Birth Matters board, I'm proud to announce the drop of . This bill will help improve health outcomes for mothers and babies by allowing for more options in birth locations and providers. I'm excited to see what will grow in this state as a result!

WHO WE ARE: South Dakota Birth Matters is a non-profit advocacy group working hard to provide more options for birth in South Dakota. We are committed to ensuring that South Dakota families have reliable access to maternity care.

THE PROBLEM: South Dakota is a maternity desert. We rank among the lowest rated states for maternal and neonatal health outcomes. Our rural communities are affected the most with limited access to maternity care. One major driving force behind this desert status is the closing of multiple labor units in hospitals statewide and the resulting increased distance to and overcrowding of remaining labor units.

THE SOLUTION: We are proposing HB1127, which will allow Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) to own, operate, and be providers in freestanding birth centers. It will also remove geographic barriers to birth center requirements, allowing providers to set up birth centers in rural areas. Midwives are essential in efforts to improve outcomes for mothers and babies worldwide.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Be a voice. Share your story. Talk with your representatives about how this bill will help families like yours to access safe birth services, even in rural areas. You can follow the link to our website that will include additional guidance and a letter template to help you craft your letter, or you can go to the legislator list below that and develop your own letter without the template. And of course you can SHARE this post and help get the word out so we can flood legislators with our voices and let them know that we are depending on their support to help improve maternal and neonatal health outcomes and increase access to birth services across the state.

QUESTIONS? If you have any questions, please feel free to comment below or contact us at sdbirthmatters@gmail.com

01/19/2026

If you ever want to feel grateful for modern medicine (flawed as it is), get yourself an obstetrics book from the 1920s...

01/01/2026

12/21/2025

The director must have a midwife in the family. 😆

07/19/2025

Still one of my favorite routines... 😅

07/08/2025

Birthy friends! Please consider sharing this invitation with your senators to gain support for birth centers nationwide. It only takes a few minutes to do and they will find your senators for you. Increase maternity care access and options for women nationwide by supporting midwives in birth centers!

[Sidenote: These are US Senators, not State Senators]

Ask your Senators to attend a lunch briefing on July 17th "Solutions for Scaling Up and Maximizing Evidenced-Based Midwifery and Birth Center Care in the United States". Honorary Host: Senator Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM)

05/05/2025

Not every birth can (or should) be fully managed by a midwife. We know our limits and we respect them, because we care about our clients. Midwives are the experts in low-risk, low-intervention birth, and not every birth is low-risk and some need more intervention. But every family deserves the opportunity to see a midwife, and to have a midwife as part of their care, even if they aren't the one to deliver them in the end. Every family deserves the care, attention, empathy, and gentle guidance of a midwife.

Today is International Day of the Midwife, so let's remember what the Midwifery Model of Care looks like, and consider how we might support midwifery care in the community. No matter what your position in the community might be, you have a voice, and you can support midwives in their efforts to serve more families and make midwifery care accessible to all.

sneak peek #2 for I am a Midwife, the new online video series all about midwives and what they do! from the Midwives Alliance of North America. http://mana...

04/12/2025

Accurate!
Doppler, herbs, laptop, and coffee! What every midwife needs!

01/03/2025

It's a tie!!!
Having now completed my first full calendar year in solo practice, I've tallied up the total births for 2024.
Total births: 16
Girls: 8
Boys: 8
VBACs: 1
First-time parents: 7

So proud of all my families and blessed to have been their midwife!

11/12/2024

Something exciting is brewing in the Black Hills...

10/09/2024

This, in a nutshell, is the Midwifery Model of Care. It's right there in the name. Midwife means "with woman".

We walk beside you. We support you. We're with you.

09/02/2024

What's the buzz in midwifery right now? Oh, just how an OB is claiming to have discovered something they're calling "purposeful positioning". It's a concept that midwives have ALWAYS known. Something that modern midwives have preached. Something one particular midwife organized and developed into a very helpful resource for parents and birth pros (Spinning Babies) over twenty years ago, with the insight and guidance of indigenous South American midwives. So once again, OBs are "discovering" a common sense concept of birth that midwives have been implementing for millenia and claiming it as their groundbreaking idea.

It isn't the first time doctors have claimed to have discovered something that midwives have always known (dig into Semmelweiss and purpureal fever), and it won't be the last.

Sigh.

I know we should be happy that this will encourage more doctors and hospitals to change their policies regarding positioning during labor and pushing, which will improve not just patient experiences, but outcomes and complication rates as well. Of course I'm glad that families will benefit from this. But it would've been better if they had listened to midwives from the start, and if they had given proper credit where it's due. Although this looks like progress, the patriarchal side of obstetrics is showing plainly.

https://www.wesh.com/article/doctors-developing-new-ways-for-mothers-to-give-birth-safely/62029014?utm_campaign=snd-autopilot&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1J9IXq0qEMhzKD9YndzaRDHovmfiEwQG5LJ-e5V1nJOsX_7oWi2XaXs98_aem_Qj8R3S540ln6S4vhNIsKmQ&sfnsn=mo

"I think this is one of the more exciting things that I've seen in obstetrics in the last 40 years," said medical director of a maternity unit