The Student Midwife Summer Issue, Volume One | Page 6

pioneering women. This often clashed with
local legislation outlawing midwives and
home birth. Slowly laws have changed on a
state­by­state to allow different forms of
midwifery legal with differing levels of
certification and supervision. Though only
about 1% of the population uses a Certified
Professional Midwife or Nurse Midwife.
Today a majority of births takes place in
hospitals, which are a system that serve large
populations of people, looking to accomplish
the most efficient and cost effective methods.
Because of these homogenized systems diverse
women are subjected to a generalized system
regardless of her needs or desires as an
individual. a typical hospital birth goes
something like this: The woman is asked to
remove her clothes and don a revealing
hospital gown, she has an IV inserted in her
hand, a fetal heart monitor and a contraction
monitor strapped to her belly. She is then
encouraged to lie in bed and try her best not
to disrupt the monitors on her belly, as they
are positioned to keep constant record of the
fetal heart tones and contractions. This is
usually the minimum of interventions used for
a healthy mom. If the mother is given Pitocin
to speed up labor she will usually experience
an increase in pain and if labor goes on the

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mother will most likely be given an epidural
for the pain. The epidural is administered
through the spine and administered in varying
doses. In most cases women are not able to
feel or move from their hips down. This
makes the use of a urinary catheter necessary.
As each medication is introduced the fetus is
put at an increased risk of distress. All
medications, no matter how common have a
certain level of risk attached. The benefits and
the risks must be weighed by a mother in
order for her to give informed consent. After
all is said and done a mother finds herself
paralyzed and anchored to the hospital bed.
Today midwives of varying levels of education
are legal in the US depending on the state.
Even though they are an available option to
many women, a majority of births occur in
the hospitals, with an obstetrician. 1.36% of
births are happening outside of the hospital
with a CNM/CPM (CDC, 2012). As a
well­developed nation, the US has 6.17 infant
deaths per 1,000 births, yet the US has a
32.8% cesarean section rate (WHO, 2012). Is
this low infant mortality rate coming at an
unhealthy cost? Similar countries like