Having a natural birth at home can be a beautiful, magical experience -- and, in Ohio, it also can lead to an arrest. Midwives who attend home births risk being prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license.
Niki Pearce, a certified nurse midwife with the Cleveland Clinic, said, "Nurse midwives have to have a physician collaborator willing to be available in case of problems. The problem in Ohio is that the malpractice insurance is such that any physician who agrees to take on a nurse midwife who takes home births finds that his malpractice insurance becomes so terribly costly that he can't allow that to happen."
Ohio Families for Safe Birth is working with the Ohio Midwives Alliance to get certified professional midwives licensed to deliver babies at the mother's home.
Audra Phillips, a CPM and president of the Ohio Midwives Alliance, said, "There are currently no legal, educational or experience requirements in Ohio for the midwives attending home births. Our licensure bill will set those standards -- a scope of practice and accountability -- using the existing national certification that is now recognized by 26 other states.
Midwives delivering babies at home can have a variety of training and experience.
Direct entry or lay midwives do not prescribe medicine or administer drugs. Many hospitals have certified nurse midwives who have a bachelor's degree, are trained as a nurse and have a master's degree in midwifery.
Kimberly French of Cleveland has been a midwife for 25 years and has been present for more than 500 home births -- including the nine she gave birth to at home.
"When I had my first baby, it took us a frightful time to find a midwife. I was probably at seven months before we found somebody. We found one through word of mouth."
French had an apprenticeship working under a supervising midwife. Years later, she became a certified professional midwife through the North American Registry of Midwives.
Asked if she would support licensure, she hesitated.
"There's pros and cons to licensure," she said. "There are things you would have to give up for licensure."
Having a license comes with restrictions that would leave out people who would want to have a home birth, according to French, "things such as twins or having a vaginal birth after a caesarian. I don't think, just because your baby is breached, you have to have a caesarian. I think a woman should be able to have that choice.
"I'm not really pushing for licensure right now. I think some of the other midwives would be more apt to let (the excluded things) go, but I feel very strongly that women should have the option. It would be more difficult if you had a license and practiced outside the rules and regulations than if there were no license at all."
Phillips said both organizations would like to introduce the bill this fall. The next step is to finalize the bill draft and identify the sponsors.