Midwives Model Care –What to Expect

 Midwives Model of Care

The Midwives Model of Care is a philosophy of care based on the fact that pregnancy and birth are normal life processes. 

The Midwives Model of Care...

• Believes that birth is a normal life event and that the female body is perfectly capable of birthing a baby in the vast majority of cases.
• Monitors the physical, psychological and social well-being of the mother throughout the childbearing cycle.
• Provides the mother with individualized education, counseling, prenatal care, and nutritional advice to meet the unique needs of a mother.
• Provides continuous hands-on assistance during labor and delivery, and postpartum support.
• Empowers a woman and provides her with patient, safe, respectful care.
• Encourages a woman to listen to her body, trust her instincts, and celebrate, rather than fear, the birthing process.
• Trusts that a woman has the intelligence to determine what is best for herself, her body, and her baby.
• Attends the laboring woman more like her trusted friend than her healthcare “provider.”
• Practices as a highly trained expert with extensive experience in normal childbirth.
• Screens, identifies and refers a woman who needs a physician visit prenatally.
• Identifies a birth that is in need of more advanced obstetrical attention and initiates an appropriate transfer of care.
• The application of this woman-centered model of care has been proven to reduce the incidence of birth injury, trauma, and cesarean section.

 See The Midwives Model of Care Brochure

(http://cfmidwifery.org/mmoc/brochures.aspx)

 Licensed Midwife in Minnesota…

  I adhere to the protocols and scope of practice for licensed midwives taken from the Standards of Care document that was developed by midwives themselves belonging to the Minnesota Midwives' Guild. This document is regularly reviewed and updated to meet the current community standards of practicing midwives.

http://214mmguild.simplweb.com/images/stories/pdf/standards_of_care_revsionsnov2011.pdf
 

Twenty six states now recognize direct-entry midwives in statute, 24 through licensure. Before the advent of the CPM credential in 1994, individual states that licensed midwives each had  their own requirements and standards. Since the availability of the CPM credential, the trend has been to use the CPM as the basis for state licensure as is the case in Minnesota; The credential also establishes a national standard for quality assurance within the profession..

The Minnesota midwifery-licensing bill was signed into law in July 1999. Read more...

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=147D&view=chapter

For more understanding of the Midwives Model of Care read 

 "Forging the New Gold Standard: The Historical Development of the Midwives Model of Care"

 An article by Maureen Dahl

 "If I’m to die in childbirth, then that’s how I’m to die.” Minni Sullivan, my maternal grandmother had just been told by the old country doctor to never have any more children. Her response silenced him. He’d been summoned to her home by her female neighbors to help stop a hemorrhage after the birth of her first child, my Uncle Jim, in 1908. She went on to birth six more children, all at home, all attended by her husband, her neighbors and the old doc. Home birth early in the twentieth century was common, especially for women in rural areas. My maternal grandmother’s words sum up the attitude of many women of the era: childbirth was normal, a woman’s expectation, yet to be faced realistically and with courage...

Full article here:   (PDF) “Forging the New Gold Standard: The Historical Development of the Midwives Model of Care”