As a community midwife and Certified Professional Midwife with a VA Midwifery license I agree and testify to the importance to access, carry and administer these medications. It is evident how integral this ability is for the safety and comfort of all families choosing out of hospital birth. This will also free up resources better used for the overburdened medical care system. When an office visit or emergency room is used for care that could easily have been provided and resolved with the access and administering of a medication it wastes important time and resources for the population at large. This has been never so evident as it was through the pandemic. I agree with the statement below.

 

A flaw in our regulations prevents Virginia midwives from serving the public health and safety of Virginians to the best of their training, skills, and abilities. Training at a national level for Certified Professional Midwives includes the carrying and administering of certain medications, which are often needed or requested during antepartum period, at the time of birth, or postpartum. Furthermore, state laws require that a newborn be administered certain drugs within 24 hours of birth. Every Licensed Midwife is certified at the national level to carry and administer these medications, but the current midwifery laws prevent them from carrying or administering them. 

 

Situations that are low risk and manageable within the home or community are, as a result, made into ordeals that at best inconvenience and at worst endanger the wellbeing of mothers and babies. Unnecessary exposure of infants to the public, and further overburdening of our healthcare systems, means that this inconsistency negatively affects the entire community. However, if the barrier to the resources for which they are trained is removed, midwives could relieve the maternity care desert status affecting nearly half of Virginians, who live outside a reasonable driving distance from a well stocked medical facility.

 

Prioritizing public safety means allowing trained health professionals to use all of their resources and skills. Strong, self reliant communities are built on skilled individuals like our midwives. To reiterate, our CPMs/LMs are already trained and certified to administer these medications; only the law prevents their acting on it. Please remove the barrier to a "community standard of care" that we want to be held by. Allow midwives to administer, posses all the tools(medications) they need to offer safe, quality care for women and families in our state of Virginia. 

 

It is more than time to best serve birthing people and their babies.