Utah Midwives
Would you like to have a safe, beautiful birth in a comfortable setting? Here at Utah Midwives we can help you achieve your goal. We have a warm, caring staff of certified professional midwives and traditional midwives that will provide care for your pregnancy and help you deliver your baby at our birth center or at your home.
While it is true that none of us have any real qualifications to safely practice medicine, that's okay because the state of Utah doesn't require us to have any. And since we choose to practice as unlicensed midwives, there's no regulation that requires us to report if there's been any negative outcomes with births we've overseen in the past. But that's okay too! Because if something went wrong, it really wasn't our fault. Some babies are just meant to go straight back to Heaven. |
Meet our Midwives
Jennifer Goodwin, CPMJennifer
is a Certified Professional Midwife with seventeen years experience.
She has delivered over 600 babies with no negative outcomes. (None that
she's required to tell you about, anyway.)
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Megan Young,
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Cassy Wheatley, CPM, DEM
Cassy
is a Certified Professional Midwife who also goes by the title Direct
Entry Midwife. She has sixteen years experience and has delivered over
500 babies with no negative outcomes (that she decided are her fault or
is required to tell you about).
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Why no licenses?
While Certified Nurse Midwives must be licensed to practice in Utah, Utah law does not require anyone to have a license to practice direct-entry-midwifery. Literally anyone can be a midwife in Utah simply by declaring themselves to be one.
If we were licensed, we'd have to follow all the rules for licensed midwives in Utah's laws. Licensed midwives in Utah are restricted to low-risk births and have things like consequences for their actions. But since licensure in Utah is voluntary, we just decided not to become licensed! That way we don't have to meet any type of educational requirements and can freely attend high risk births at home that have high rates of death out of the hospital, like breech births, VBACs (births after a previous cesarean), and twin births. Problem solved.
Even though "authorities" like the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists call these conditions "high risk," and other developed countries around the world risk women with these conditions out of home birth, we simply consider these conditions "variations of normal." And we're very sorry if your VBAC baby happens to be the 1 in 200 VBAC babies that die at home birth (a rate of death 4x higher than the hospital), or if your breech baby happens to be the 1 in 50 breech babies that die at home birth (a rate of death 25x times higher than the hospital).
We direct-entry and traditional midwives are so lucky to have Utah's voluntary licensure laws. Even hair stylists have to have licenses to practice in Utah, but we don't! We are truly blessed.
If we were licensed, we'd have to follow all the rules for licensed midwives in Utah's laws. Licensed midwives in Utah are restricted to low-risk births and have things like consequences for their actions. But since licensure in Utah is voluntary, we just decided not to become licensed! That way we don't have to meet any type of educational requirements and can freely attend high risk births at home that have high rates of death out of the hospital, like breech births, VBACs (births after a previous cesarean), and twin births. Problem solved.
Even though "authorities" like the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists call these conditions "high risk," and other developed countries around the world risk women with these conditions out of home birth, we simply consider these conditions "variations of normal." And we're very sorry if your VBAC baby happens to be the 1 in 200 VBAC babies that die at home birth (a rate of death 4x higher than the hospital), or if your breech baby happens to be the 1 in 50 breech babies that die at home birth (a rate of death 25x times higher than the hospital).
We direct-entry and traditional midwives are so lucky to have Utah's voluntary licensure laws. Even hair stylists have to have licenses to practice in Utah, but we don't! We are truly blessed.
Malpractice Insurance
Here at Utah Midwives we do not carry malpractice insurance. It isn't required by law, and it eats into our profits. We aren't worried about being sued because without malpractice insurance, very few lawyers will take on a lawsuit against us since there isn't enough money in our bank accounts to make the lawsuit worth it. And if a lawsuit is successfully won against us, we'll just declare bankruptcy, close our birth center, and open a birth center with a new name and continue practicing, like that one birth center in Michigan.
Like most other home birth advocates, we want you to believe that malpractice insurance protects doctors so that they can keep practicing when they do something wrong. We also want you to believe that as home birth midwives don't need malpractice insurance because nothing we do causes injury, and we would stop practicing if we did something wrong.
In truth, malpractice insurance does not protect health care providers who make mistakes. It protects the families who the health care provider injures. Birth injuries in particular can be very costly and require expensive life-long care. If a family chooses a health care provider who carries malpractice insurance, and something goes wrong that the health care provider should have prevented, the family will be able to sue for the money they need to take care of the injury. If it's a doctor or certified nurse midwife, they will still have professional repercussions from their mistake, as they are overseen by boards of professionals who thoroughly review their actions. Malpractice insurance doesn't protect them in any way from losing their hospital privileges or their license. On the other hand, if a family chooses a midwife who does not carry malpractice insurance, and something goes wrong that the midwife should have prevented, the family will have no venues for financial compensation. They will have to pay for the (potentially life-long) costs of the injury themselves. And the midwife will have no professional repercussions, as she has no one to report to, no license to lose, and nothing to stop her from taking on new clients without telling them of her past negative outcomes.
But don't worry, we don't make mistakkes.
Like most other home birth advocates, we want you to believe that malpractice insurance protects doctors so that they can keep practicing when they do something wrong. We also want you to believe that as home birth midwives don't need malpractice insurance because nothing we do causes injury, and we would stop practicing if we did something wrong.
In truth, malpractice insurance does not protect health care providers who make mistakes. It protects the families who the health care provider injures. Birth injuries in particular can be very costly and require expensive life-long care. If a family chooses a health care provider who carries malpractice insurance, and something goes wrong that the health care provider should have prevented, the family will be able to sue for the money they need to take care of the injury. If it's a doctor or certified nurse midwife, they will still have professional repercussions from their mistake, as they are overseen by boards of professionals who thoroughly review their actions. Malpractice insurance doesn't protect them in any way from losing their hospital privileges or their license. On the other hand, if a family chooses a midwife who does not carry malpractice insurance, and something goes wrong that the midwife should have prevented, the family will have no venues for financial compensation. They will have to pay for the (potentially life-long) costs of the injury themselves. And the midwife will have no professional repercussions, as she has no one to report to, no license to lose, and nothing to stop her from taking on new clients without telling them of her past negative outcomes.
But don't worry, we don't make mistakkes.
High Rates of Newborn Death at Home Birth
We'd prefer if you didn't read the following studies, which show increased rates of newborn death at home birth in the United States:
We'd also appreciate it if you didn't read these studies which show higher rates of seizures and brain injuries at home birth:
We'd like to link to studies that show homebirth in the United States is safe, but we can't, because every major study on US homebirth shows that homebirth here has at least three times the death rate as hospital birth. We could link to studies from other countries, but even we understand that data from other countries can't be applied to the United States. This is because both our home birth systems and our midwife education levels are entirely different. In other developed nations home births are incorporated into the main health system, so they have strict "risking out" criteria and collaborative transfers that keep women and babies safe. Their midwives' education also meets (or exceeds) the minimum educational standards set forth by the International Federation of Midwives. On the other hand, the home birth midwives allowed to practice in the United States (like us!) have so little education that we would not be allowed to practice in any other developed country.
We here at Utah Midwives feel so blessed to live in the one developed nation that would allow us to practice with so little education and training, and despite study after study showing that babies are at risk under our care.
- Term neonatal deaths resulting from home births: an increasing trend - Published 2014; found planned, midwife-attended home births have a death rate more than four times higher than hospital birth
- Intrapartum Fetal and Neonatal Deaths Associated with Planned Out-of-Hospital Births in Oregon, 2012 - Complete out-of-hospital (OOH) birth data for Oregon in the year 2012; found that planned, midwife-attended OOH births have a death rate more than eight times higher than hospital birth
- Outcomes of Care for 16,924 Planned Home Births in the United States: The Midwives Alliance of North America Statistics Project, 2004 to 2009 - Published 2014; found that planned, midwife-attended home birth has a death rate five and a half times higher than hospital birth
We'd also appreciate it if you didn't read these studies which show higher rates of seizures and brain injuries at home birth:
- Home birth and risk of neonatal hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy - Published 2014; found that babies born at home suffered brain damage 17 times more often than those born at the hospital
- Selected perinatal outcomes associated with planned home births in the United States - Published 2013; found that babies born at home are three times more likely to have a seizure than those born at the hospital
- Apgar score of 0 at 5 minutes and neonatal seizures or serious neurologic dysfunction in relation to birth setting - Published 2013; found that babies born at home are more than ten times more likely to have a five minute Apgar score of 0 (meaning, no signs of life at five minutes) than babies born at the hospital. Also found that babies born at home have seizures or experience serious neurologic dysfunction nearly four times more often than those born at the hospital.
We'd like to link to studies that show homebirth in the United States is safe, but we can't, because every major study on US homebirth shows that homebirth here has at least three times the death rate as hospital birth. We could link to studies from other countries, but even we understand that data from other countries can't be applied to the United States. This is because both our home birth systems and our midwife education levels are entirely different. In other developed nations home births are incorporated into the main health system, so they have strict "risking out" criteria and collaborative transfers that keep women and babies safe. Their midwives' education also meets (or exceeds) the minimum educational standards set forth by the International Federation of Midwives. On the other hand, the home birth midwives allowed to practice in the United States (like us!) have so little education that we would not be allowed to practice in any other developed country.
We here at Utah Midwives feel so blessed to live in the one developed nation that would allow us to practice with so little education and training, and despite study after study showing that babies are at risk under our care.
Petition for Safer Home Birth
Whatever you do, please don't sign this petition that would increase the safety of mothers and babies involved in home birth! Since it requires licensing (along with other basic safety measures), it would put us out of business. And that would be totally uncool! We love supporting mothers and delivering babies, even if we aren't nearly educated or trained enough to do so and a lot of them are unnecessarily injured under our care. It would be such a pain to actually go to school and learn about the human body! I mean, we'd have to take classes like anatomy and learn what science and statistics say about safe birth practices. And on top of that it would cost money! We'd much rather just be able to not go to school. We're pretty sure that our high school biology class taught us everything we needed to know about birth complications. Plus we read a few books. And it's not like anyone's lives or brain function are at stake!
Change.org: Protect Mothers and Babies - Make Home Birth Safer
Change.org: Protect Mothers and Babies - Make Home Birth Safer
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.