Welcome to the second edition of the CPM Symposium 2012 series of reports in which we will review the content generated at the Symposium and engage the midwifery community in cutting edge conversations about maternity care!

Midwifery in the United States is a multi-faceted profession with enormous strengths and tremendous challenges. Certified Professional Midwives bring a particular perspective and experience to the mix that is increasingly recognized as adding important value to the maternity care system. This report from the CPM Symposium 2012 brings together information on the state of midwifery in the U.S., addressing regulation, education, and practice. We often think of ourselves as marginalized when in fact our profession actually exemplifies the most compelling ideas for health care reform, and understanding this context can provide support to activists working on the state level, thinking about collaborative practices, and even examining how each  individual midwife's practice contributes to the whole.

We plan to release fifteen reports through the remainder of 2012, each examining a different set of symposium topics.  The first, distributed in May, highlighted the themes generated by symposium participants and can be found by clicking here. The next report will focus on Health Professionals for a New Century. Each report will include links to symposium videos and presentation materials, updates from our speakers, news and  resources. We will also feature comments and suggestions from our readers in keeping with the spirit of the symposium - learning and growing together!

We intend to set the direction of NACPM towards a unified profession of midwifery serving the majority of childbearing women in a primary maternity care system in the United States.  In service of this goal we intend to work strategically to strengthen our professional association, to position Certified Professional Midwives to play an effective role in improving the quality of maternity care in our country, to remove barriers to women's access to the care of CPMs, and to work collaboratively with allied organizations and initiatives.  ~Mary Lawlor

We are standing here together because we believe that with the challenges that face us as midwives and that also face women in terms of every woman having access to a midwife - we'll have a better chance of addressing those challenges when we're united, not divided!  ~Holly Powell Kennedy

Midwifery faces many challenges in the U.S. but there are exciting opportunities as well!  Mary Lawlor, CPM, MA, Executive Director of the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives, and Holly Powell Kennedy, President of the American College of Nurse-Midwives, provide an overview of midwifery, addressing issues such as cultural recognition, state regulation, access to education, and barriers to practice.  They compare the strategic goals of ACNM and NACPM and discuss key opportunities for collaboration and growth.


Click here to watch the video footage including Mary's and Holly's presentations.

We now have CPMs in every state of the U.S. except Rhode Island, eight Canadian provinces, Mexico and sixteen other countries.  ~Ida Darragh

Learn about forthcoming results from a national survey conducted of CPMs in 2011 and learn about NARM's plan to launch another CPM study in 2015. Ida Darragh, CPM, Chair of the Board of the North American Registry of Midwives, addresses the number and distribution of CPMs, how many new credentials are being issued each year, the legal status and scope of practice in states where CPMs are licensed, and the challenges midwives and consumers face in securing licensure.

We can be really proud of the many innovative, audacious, deeply meaningful ways that we have found to teach midwifery and we can be proud of the certification and accreditation agencies we've built that hold the space to recognize and validate multiple routes to midwifery.  ~Jo Anne Myers-Ciecko

Midwifery students today have many options for pursuing their dreams - but are there enough preceptors, schools, financial aid sources, and other resources to produce the thousands of midwives we'll need to transform maternity care in the U.S.? Jo Anne Myers-Ciecko, MPH, former Executive Director of the Midwifery Education Accreditation Council, reports on a recent survey of direct-entry midwifery education in the U.S. and discusses the strengths of community-based education and multiple routes to entry. She also describes the needs and desires of today's students and the challenges to midwifery education.

How many of you have been with a woman at a birth who is posting her status on social media after a pelvic exam? ... Is consciousness of birth and technology an oxymoron? ... If you feel a sense of exponential change - you're just tapped into reality!  ~Brynne Potter

There is significant alignment between the vision of increased patient autonomy as outlined in the Affordable Care Act and the fundamental principles of woman-centered education and decision-making that CPMs provide as part of our standard of care. Brynne Potter, CPM, member of the Board of the North American Registry of Midwives, discusses opportunities to showcase our successes in developing continuous healing relationships and how increased patient engagement can be achieved through a better understanding of new tools for Shared Decision Making and Informed Consent.

Click here to access a pdf of the presentation.

Click here to watch the video footage including Brynne's presentation.

The CPM Symposium 2012 was designed to be interactive because we know that we have so much to learn from each other. Please share your opinions, ideas, resources, and news related to the topics addressed in this report or the symposium generally. We'll post responses in the next report.

Simply hit "reply" to send us your thoughts!