BuffaloBirth Network will be producing a pregnancy resource guide for all of Western New York. It will contain tips for a healthy pregnancy and birth, birth stories, and listings of local resources. The guides will be distributed throughout the area through doulas, childbirth educators, and other pregnancy related businesses, as well as local libraries.

The resource listing will include all BuffaloBirth Network professional members. If you would like to be included in the guide, please fill out the professional membership form and return it with your dues.

If you would like to advertise in the resource guide, please contact info@buffalobirth.com for more information.

CIMS, the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services, a group working toward transparency in maternity care, today announced that consumer survey results rating health care providers and birth facilities are now available online at www.thebirthsurvey.com.

The CIMS Transparency in Maternity Care Project: The Birth Survey is the first ever consumer ratings website dedicated solely to providing feedback on obstetricians, midwives, hospitals, birth centers, and home birth services. The consumer reviews include overall ratings and recommendations for birth facilities and care providers, and also a seven-item set of questions on providers’ interpersonal and communication skills, facility intervention rates, and information on finding good care. A national average of ratings is also displayed to provide comparison with individual ratings.

Do you need help finding a mother-friendly obstetrician, midwife, doula, or childbirth educator? Please call us at (716) 575-HOME or email us at info@buffalobirth.com.

You can also check our online local resources guide, but note that this is a work in progress and more resources are available than are relfected by the guide.

Our very own Rachel Zeller has been featured in an article about birth in Buffalo and beyond in an article in Art Voice. Please check it out!

Getting Off Our Backs

by Lindsay Berman

How women are reclaiming birth, one midwife at a time

Eileen is not coming to your house with a bottle of gin,” says Eileen Stewart.

The director of Buffalo Midwifery Services and a certified nurse midwife, Stewart is one of many midwives across the country trying to demystify the public’s image of midwifery, including the notion that it is an old-world holdout whose method of choice is liquor. Stewart says her mission is to help women understand their birthing options, their bodies, and their rights.

This focus on the re-empowerment of birthing mothers and the firm belief in the mental and physical control women can have over birth breeds contention between the traditional medical community and midwives, naturalists, and women seeking alternatives to medicalized birth. ...

The New York State Association of Licensed Midwives met on Monday at the Legislative Office Building for their annual Lobby Day.

The big topic of the day was a new bill that has been introduced by the NY senate (bill S5007) and the assembly (bill A08117) to remove the Written Practice Agreement portion of the current midwifery laws. The WPA means that in order for a midwife, who has already undergone full training and licensure, must also have a practice agreement with a collaborating physician in order to serve women.

While the midwives agree that they should have collaboration with other providers when tending to their patients, they feel that this is already part of their job - or any other medical proffesion - without it being a required statement. They also argue that the WPA has made it extremely difficult for them to practice since many providers either will not sign the agreements or they will make stipulations that are too restrictive.

Removing the WPA will have countless benefits including: increasing access to care for all women of childbearing age and beyond, especially in rural communities; economic benefits because midwifery care is more cost-effective (thereby reducing insurance costs); and improving both maternal and infant health which is currently on the decline.

You can download a letter to send to your state representatives here. Please send a copy, or your own personal letter, to your state senator and assemblyman. You can find your senator by entering your zipcode here, and your assemblyman here.

The text of the bill can be found  here, and the sponsor memo for the senate bill can be found  here.

Please take a moment to tell your state representatives that you support this bill!

Thank you,
Rachel Zeller
Administrative Chair, BuffaloBirth Network

A Day with Ina May was the title of the 9th annual family conference in Pittsburg PA this year and Jeanine and I attended.

It was great spending all day listening to Ina May talk about birth and politics surrounded by like-minded Midwives, Doulas, Childbirth Educators, and Moms. It was a warm, cheerful, and empowering room of women making a difference.