Event raises support for legalizing midwifery

To Jennifer Williams, a midwife for 17 years, delivering babies is her life. Or rather, it was. \nIn 2005, Williams was prosecuted in Shelby County for practicing midwifery and medicine. She pled guilty and received one year's probation, but since then Williams has not delivered any more babies. For a woman who used to deliver 70 babies a year for about $119,000 a year, her loss of livelihood, combined with legal fees, has left her seriously financially burdened, she said.\nTo help defray Williams' expenses, friend Shelley Milligan organized Freeborn, an event to raise funds for Williams and awareness for the cause of midwifery. \nFreeborn, held Saturday afternoon in Third Street Park, hosted about 300 people throughout the day, Williams estimated. The event included a silent auction of goods donated by people and businesses throughout Bloomington, free massages donated by students of the Associates of Integrative Health and performances by local musicians. Visitors were also encouraged to collect information about midwifery and sign letters to legislators in support of a bill that would allow midwives to practice legally in Indiana. \nWilliams was prosecuted after a baby she delivered was stillborn. Though she was not found to be at fault for the baby's death, since it is illegal in Indiana for midwives to attend to home births, she was arraigned on charges related to that violation. \n"I was the one who got prosecuted, but we (midwives) are all in the same boat," Williams said. \nSince then, Williams has \nredoubled her efforts to get legislation passed that would allow midwives to be registered as Certified Professional Midwives and to attend home births. \n"The issue is that people who choose home birth should be able to have a licensed midwife there to attend them," Williams said. "We have been working on a bill to license midwives since 1993." \nMain opposition to the bill, which comes up again in January, comes from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, who see the practice as unsafe. According to a position paper filed in response to a similar licensure bill passed in Wisconsin, the ACOG was concerned that the bill did not require a minimum amount of education, pharmacology training before administering drugs, or malpractice insurance. The paper also stressed that the bill did not create a collaborative agreement between hospitals and midwives in case of complications that necessitated transfer to a hospital.\nWomen choose to deliver at home for a number of reasons, Williams said. Some, like the Amish community that she used to serve, choose home birth for religious reasons. Others seek continuity of care, a female attendant or feel that a home birth is safer than a hospital birth, Williams said. \n"For low-risk pregnancies, studies have always shown that home birth is as safe, if not safer, than giving birth at a hospital," Williams said. \nStudies aside, however, not everyone is convinced of the merits of home birth. Bloomington resident and mother of four Nan Brewer, who did not attend Freeborn, considered home birth after her first hospital delivery went smoothly, but when her second child was born three months early she nixed the idea for future pregnancies. \n"My second child had to be immediately put on a ventilator," Brewer said. "I knew a few people who had done home births, and if the second had gone as smoothly as the first I might have considered it, but after that I was too nervous." \nThough Milligan had hoped Freeborn would make a serious dent in Williams' legal bills, the event ultimately netted only about $300 after expenses, she said. However, many of the 74 items donated for silent auction were not purchased, she said. In hopes of raising more money for Williams' cause, Milligan intends to find a new venue to put the items back up for auction. \n"After all we put into planning the event, we did hope to raise more," Milligan said. "But we still got the word out and got lots of letters signed, which hopefully will push the legislation issue"