Midwives & Mothers in Action

9lb full term baby born at home with CPMsA major Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report came out this week on infant mortality in the U.S., and its findings are pretty clear: the U.S. has bad infant mortality statistics because too many babies are born prematurely.  And why are too many babies born prematurely?  There are many reasons, but one of them appears to be that doctors are pushing induction and caesarian section on women.  According to the author of the report, statistician Marian MacDorman, “Fifteen or 20 years ago, if a woman had high blood pressure or diabetes, she would be put in the hospital, and they would try to wait it out. It was called expectant management.  Now I think there’s more of a tendency to take the baby out early if there’s any question at all.”

The sad part about this is that the U.S. is really good at taking care of premature babies.  Premature babies born in the U.S. are “more likely to survive” here than elsewhere, but we just have so many premature births that our infant mortality rate is worse than countries where the care for premature babies is not as good.

According to the study, “If U.S. infants were as mature as Sweden's are at birth, nearly 8,000 infant deaths could be avoided and the U.S. infant mortality rate would be about one-third lower than it is.” Poverty is also a major factor, as is a reliance on fertility drugs, which often result in riskier multiple births. 

It sounds like we need to find a source of low-cost maternity care that encourages bringing babies to full term.  And hey, we’ve got one: Certified Professional Midwives.  Midwives are ready and willing to answer the call, if the federal government will just recognize us.