Emergency Preparedness: Midwives Working to Help Address the COVID-19 Pandemic and Increase Access to CPMs
Over the last six weeks midwives across the country have mobilized to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Midwives have worked within states and across the country to be part of the emergency response to COVID-19.
Community Midwives (CPMS, LMs, CNMs, CMs) who practice in out of hospital settings are uniquely positioned to help care for low-risk healthy birthing patients when the hospital system is overburdened. CPMs, and other midwives with home birth experience, are especially important in a pandemic because they know how to support physiologic birth with limited technology in a community setting; something most hospital providers do not know how to do.
State midwifery organizations across the country have reached out to Departments of Health and other officials to offer midwives as part of emergency preparedness plans. The Midwives Association of Florida sent a letter to the Department of Health and AHCA offering ways Florida midwives could be utilized in the emergency response if needed. The Midwives Association of Washington State (MAWS) is working with the Washington State Midwifery COVID-19 Response Coalition on several aspects of emergency response and issues related to community birth. This group has also created “Interim Guidelines for Community-Based Midwives During the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
Several national organizations have also addressed this issue. The Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery (FAM) wrote an excellent statement “Out-of-Hospital Birth and Pandemic Planning” that lays out why and how CPMs can be part of the emergency response to COVID-19. NACPM presented a webinar on COVID-19: Community Midwives, Public Health, and Emergency Preparedness which included eight speakers detailing efforts across the country to include midwives in the COVID-19 response and how midwives are working to address the COVID-19 pandemic. As midwives are working to be part of the larger public health response, clients are also flocking to their care.
Increasing numbers of families are seeking midwifery care to escape overburdened hospitals and the risk of infection from COVID-19. Articles such as The Daily Beast’s: “Pregnant Women Turn to Home Births to Escape Virus” are highlighting this trend. Many midwives are working to take late transfers to home birth care to accommodate these clients. However, access to midwives during the pandemic is limited in several states. Midwifery advocates are working to increase midwifery access by requesting emergency licensing in unregulated states, medicaid coverage, and insurance coverage for CPM services. The Big Push for Midwives has a detailed list of these efforts.
As the pandemic continues to evolve, midwives and advocates will be continuing to work to increase access to midwifery care and to offer their special knowledge and midwifery expertise to the emergency response to COVID-19. Not to mention, catching a whole lot more babies as well!