Home Birth Safety Act Draws Unprecedented Support
South Dakota Poised to Join 25 Other States in Strengthening
Out-of-Hospital Maternity Care Standards

PIERRE, SD — At 7:45 a.m. on Tuesday, February 10, the Home Birth Safety Act (House Bill 1179) will be debated in the Health and Human Services Committee in Room 412 at the Capitol, as families across the
state make plans to converge on the Capitol to call on their awmakers to license and regulate Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs), who are trained as specialists in out-of-hospital maternity care.

Prime sponsor of the bill, Senator Larry Rhoden (R) is hearing these families very clearly. “This bill is a win-win for South Dakota. It gives families that have made the decision to deliver their babies at home the ability to hire a professional, which in turn makes home birth safer in South Dakota.”

According to the Department of Health, the infant death rate for out-of-hospital births from 2001 to 2005 was three times the state’s average. “These numbers are appalling,” said Debbie Pease, Co-Chair of South Dakota Safe Childbirth Options (SDSCO). “Unfortunately, they are directly related to the inability of our home birth families to gain legal access to quality prenatal and maternity care from professional midwives who are nationally certified.”

Representative Roger Hunt (R), prime sponsor in the House, agreed. “Families in our state are giving birth at home for a wide range of reasons, often due to financial, cultural, philosophical or practical concerns. They deserve the protection provided by having access to licensed Certified Professional Midwives.”

Under current law, families who deliver their babies outside of the hospital must do without the assistance of a licensed midwife.

Evidence-Based Maternity Care: What It Is and What It Can Achieve, which was just released October 2008, is available free in PDF format at childbirthconnection.org. This report was written for legislators with the policy recommendations made by legislator members of the Reforming States Group. Our goal is to have each legislator presented a copy (or at least a summary) of this report by a constituent. Here are some points of key interest to South Dakota home birth families.

The CPM credential is:
* one of three national midwifery credentials in the US (CNM, CM and CPM) which are all accredited by the same body – the National Organization of Competency Assurance
* a midwifery credential currently regulated in about half of the states, with the remainder developing legislation
* one of the three types of midwives recommended to improve the safety of moms and babies through increased access to their care (in South Dakota that will involve licensing and regulation of CPMs)

Since this report is a 120 page document we are working on putting together a summary that can be downloaded from our website (sdSafeBirth.org), but we encourage you to read the report for yourself. Here are a few quotes to wet your appetite:

Under the section on Underused Interventions

Join our email group and stay up to date with
what is happening in South Dakota and around
the country with midwifery legislation this
session. Email dpease84@yahoo.com and ask
to be added to our email group.

In an effort to help our supporters come to Pierre for the legislative session, SDSCO has established a “Gas Fund”.

Thank you to everyone who paid their dues or were able to go above and beyond either financially or with donations of items to the silent auction or other events. We greatly appreciate the tremendous amount of time and talent so many of our supporters devote to planning events, hosting meals, & putting together the newsletter and other activities. Thank you!

Champions

Heath & Kris Hetzel – Lemmon
Dr. Lisa Lundstrom, Lundstrom Chiropractic
Dr. Josh Biberdorf, Black Hills Health & Wellness Center
Dr. Shannon DeBoer, Black Hills Health & Wellness Center
Treese Morford DeBoer, HypnoBirthing
Travis & Chandelle Brink, Usborne Books
Dwayne & Zona Vig – Mud Butte
Nadine West - Hayti
Rosanna Kulla - Hazel

Advocates
Dana & Nancy Dennert – Columbia

Friends
Karen Pettigrew – Rapid City

On September 22nd Chandelle & Travis Brink and Treese DeBoer organized a showing of The Business of Being Born at the historic, downtown Elks Theater in Rapid City. Prior to the showing legislative candidates were invited for an informal dinner to discuss home birth and midwifery issues. Seven candidates came for the meal, but not all were able to stay for the film.

Nearly 70 people viewed the film and took part in the discussion that followed. Audience members posed many heartfelt questions to the panel which consisted of midwife Jeanne Prentis, retired L & D nurse Ruby Kaiser, home birth couple Amanda and Jamie Loftus, and Leah Janssen who has had 5 hospital births. The feedback and response after the movie was great! Everyone reported enjoying themselves. We extend a big thank you to Chandelle's parents, Dwayne & Zona Vig, who donated meat for the evening meal and the grass-fed beef drawing for which there were 4 winners.

By Tanya Olson, Conference Coordinator

The 2008 Healthy Birth + Healthy Family Conference sponsored by SDSCO was held this year at the beautiful Crazy Horse Memorial conference center near Custer. Despite the opening day snowstorm on October 10th, many families attended and all of our speakers and vendors cheerfully shared the stormy day with us. We had single sessions all day on Friday and concurrent sessions on Saturday, giving us 14 separate educational sessions! Chiropractor Dr. Laura Prunty kicked off Friday’s session with a fascinating talk on pregnancy nutrition which led very naturally into her second session on chemical stresses on the unborn and newborn. Dr. Prunty was an excellent speaker with practical nutritional advice for everyone trying to improve their diet and health.

If you have never seen dynamic speaker Dr. Ben Rall, we highly recommend attending one of his health education sessions held in Sioux Falls. We were honored to have him and our attendees were enthralled with his talk about antibiotics and how to reduce their use. Dr. Rall presented the research (or lack of research) behind commonly held medical beliefs and practices in a way that kept us on the edge of our seats.

Dr. Rall got us all fired up for “Lobbying for Better Health Care” presented by Dr. Heather Margaret, Debbie Pease and Paul Levijoki which was the perfect introduction for Renee Ann Cramer from Drake University in Des Moines, IA. Ms. Cramer has been researching the homebirth and midwifery movement in preparation for her upcoming book. She gave us a national perspective on this movement and its key players and applauded SDSCO’s commitment and organization; a real pat on the back to all of you who have put in your volunteer time toward our efforts in South Dakota! I found her talk very encouraging and inspirational.

By Alaina Kerkhove, Vice Chair, SDSCO

Surgical births (c-sections) are at an all time high of 32%. Consequently, more and more couples find themselves in the position of having to decide if they should have a repeat cesarean or attempt a VBAC, vaginal birth after a cesarean. It is getting increasingly difficult for these families to find a care provider willing to even consider the VBAC option, and for women who have had two or more surgical births it is almost impossible to find a care provider to work with them.

In the 1960s the c-section rate was under 5%. After hospitals began using routine fetal heart monitoring, the c-section rate more then doubled with no better outcomes. The 80s brought a time of reform: mothers demanded VBACs. According to the National Vital Statistic Reports, the VBAC rate hit an all-time high in 1997 of about 28%. In 1999 ACOG (American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology) came out with the recommendation that “VBAC should be attempted in institutions equipped to respond to emergencies with physicians immediately available to provide emergency care." This recommendation caused many hospitals to refuse to do VBACs and other hospitals to tighten their restrictions. The result is an out-of-control c-section rate that has been climbing every year with no better outcomes. The studies are very clear that vaginal birth is safer for moms and babies, and the risks with c-sections increase with each surgery the mother undergoes. We should be outraged that one out of 3 babies is born through major surgery.