American College
of  Community Midwives 

A professional organization for Community Midwives

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(1) American College of Community Midwives 

(2) California College of Midwives

 


Related Web Sites & Popular Subdirectories
(4)  ScienceBasedBirth.com  
(5)
NormalBirth.Org  
(6)
MaterntyCare2.0 
(

(3) California's Midwifery Advisory Council Info
(4) Shortcut to printer-friendly LM Stats form - 2007

The Medical Board asked the College of Midwives site not to
published information on Council, but instead to direct LMs to the
Board's official web site for updates on MBC/Midwifery Issues

Last Updated

Saturday, September 06, 2008


info@collegeofmidwives.org

 

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ACCM

A professional organization for  midwives who provide physiologically-based maternity care in a community settings
 ~
client homes,
maternity homes 
or birth centers.

Short Cut to Important or Popular Files:

 Midwifery Services 
  Faith Gibson, LM, CPM
incl. VBAC info  
  
Newspaper Stories
 about Birth
 
 California College of Midwives 
 Midwifery Standard of Care

  Power Point Presentation   

 Web Site  Table of Contents    Century Theatre Ad ~ Final Draft  

Four Contrasting Studies on Safety: (1) unattended, (2) lay midwife-attended,
(3) professional midwife-attended
and (4) obstetrician-attended
-- providing cost-effective maternity care to an essentially healthy population via
maximal results with minimal interventions
 a beneficial ratio of interventions to outcomes for each childbearing woman

Making Normal Birth a Reality - a Consensus Statement from the Maternity Care Working Party and endorsed by the UK’s Royal College of Obstetricians andGynaecologists (RCOG),
the Royal College of Midwives, the National Childbirth Trust, and other organizations.

EXCERPT: Ob-gyn and midwife organizations in the UK are endorsing a new consensus report calling for action to increase rates of ‘normal birth’ where appropriate in order to minimize morbidity and complication rates. "Choice of place of birth including home birth, a midwife-led birth centre and a maternity unit with midwifery and medical facilities.

The definition of normal birth is: “without induction, without the use of instruments, not by caesarean section and without general, spinal or epidural anaesthetic before or during delivery” (see p3 of document for details ."Procedures used during labour which are known to increase the likelihood of medical interventions should be avoided where possible. For example, continuous electronic fetal monitoring during labour in low-risk women is associated with an increase in emergency caesarean section but no long-term health gain, (5) and use of epidural anaesthetic in labour increases the need for forceps or ventouse. (6) ...... it is important that women’s needs and wishes are respected and they should be able to make informed decisions about their care."

Best Evidence - Extensive archive of links to primary sources, citation lists and excerpts documenting the scientific basis for physiological childbirth  as the universal standard of care for healthy women with normal pregnancies.

Other topics included on the "Best Evidence"  subdirectory are (1) community-based midwifery, and (2) political and historical forces that have inappropriately medicalized normal childbirth in the US and which underlie the push by organized medicine to declare elective Cesarean surgery the new, 21st century standard of care for in a healthy population. This archival subdirectory contains all the important article sprinkled through out the College of Midwives web site, including several on that can be accessed directly via links above and below on this home page

Marginalizing of Nurse Midwifery 
In a hurry? Want to cut to the chase or copy text for a quote?
Click on the
Annotated Excerpts

Additional articles relevant to marginalizing or eliminating nurse midwifery care:
 Choice in Planning and Experiencing Childbirth

AMA Journal of Ethics ~ Virtual Mentor.
September 2004, Volume 6, Number 9. Policy Forum 

Birth Environments 1992  
Economics of  hospital obstetrical departments
& Med-Mal Insurance as a money maker

2007 Maternal Mortality Rises Previous 3 years  -- maternal deaths more frequent after C-section
than normal birth ~ Compilation of reports and MM Stats from California, New York and the UK


ACEO Policy Statement on OOH Birth

Report on BMJ study on PHB published in ObGynNews 2005 

Note: Many California midwives were participants in this study and contributed statistics from our home birth practices.

Outcomes of planned home births with certified professional midwives: 
Large prospective study in North America
~ British Medical Journal   (18 June 2005) 


  All materials posted on this website are protected by international copyright and trademark laws. The American College of Community Midwives reserves all legal, beneficial and moral right to title and any interest in the materials. All materials posted on this website may be used for study, research or review. Original material may be recited in accordance with national and international copy law provided that the American College of Community Midwives is identified as the source. 
                                          Copyright 1996-2006 in perpetuity . . .


Letter to Fistula Foundation - PDF for Walk To Beautiful 
Synopsis of Childbirth Physiology  May 2008

ORGYN ~ Obstetrics, Reproductive Health, Gynecology
-Best of Archive --> Jan 2001-Sept 2008