Posted on 01/18/2006 7:28:55 PM PST by Liberty1970
Midwife’s arrest protested Supporters gather at courthouse; charges allege lack of credentials
By ROB DOWDY Staff writer
The children of protester Julianna Zull of Crawfordsville, Mireil, 2, and Gabe, 4, hold signs in front of the Shelby County Courthouse showing their support for midwives. NEWS photos by DAYLA THURSTON Mary Allen Ayres (left), president of the Indiana Midwives Association, stands with Jennifer Louisa Williams among supporters in the Shelby County Courthouse. A midwife from Bloomington turned herself in to the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department Friday afternoon as dozens of her supporters walked the grounds of the Shelby County Courthouse to protest the charges filed against her.
Facing two felony charges, Jennifer Louisa Williams, 53, turned herself in to authorities at 1:30 p.m. Friday and immediately bonded out of custody. She is charged with practicing medicine without a license, a Class C felony, and unlicensed practice of midwifery, a Class D felony.
“I wasn’t surprised about the charges,” Williams said, adding that she could not comment further on the case.
Williams’ arrest comes after an investigation into the death of newborn baby Oliver Meredith on June 3. Authorities said Williams assisted in the birth and performed a surgical procedure when the delivery became difficult.
According to Detective Rick Isgrigg’s investigative report, the baby died due to “cephalohematoma with neonatal asphyxia.” The complication occurs most commonly when the fetal head is forced through the birth canal and tearing of vessels causes bleeding and a pocket of blood collects, the report said.
Oliver Meredith was taken by ambulance to Johnson Memorial Hospital in Franklin, where he was pronounced dead at about 8:30 p.m. He was the son of the Rev. J.D. and Kristi Jo Meredith of Edinburgh. The Merediths, contacted by phone Friday, declined to comment on the case.
“She has participated with complete openness in the investigation in the baby’s death. The people investigating the death found no fault in her practice,” said Mary Helen Ayres, president of the Indiana Midwives Association.
The felony charges address Williams’ alleged lack of credentials to practice midwifery in Indiana and do not directly involve her specific actions during the birthing procedure.
Isgrigg said midwives in Indiana must be registered nurses. He said Williams is a certified professional midwife, according to the North American Registry of Midwives (NARM), but is not a registered nurse.
“She has to go through the qualifications, just like anyone else,” Isgrigg said.
Another midwife, Nicole M. Ore-Kelley, also assisted in the delivery of Oliver Meredith. Ore-Kelley has not been charged in the case.
Isgrigg said the Merediths found both midwives through the NARM Web site, www.narm.org. NARM is a midwife certification agency that provides lists of midwives for potential mothers. Debbie Pulley, of NARM, said mothers choose their own midwives.
In his report, Isgrigg said Williams told the Merediths she had assisted with about 1,500 births, but this birth was the first that resulted in death.
As Williams left custody, she was greeted by protesters — including children, parents and concerned citizens — who stalked the grounds of the Shelby County Courthouse to decry her arrest. They carried signs and placards, some reading “Stop Prosecuting Midwives” and “This is a Legislative Issue.”
Mary Ann Griffin, a board member for the Indiana Midwives Association, said the charges have nothing to do with the baby’s death. She said charges were filed only after investigators discovered through the course of their investigation that Williams was not a licensed midwife or a registered nurse in Indiana.
“She’s a very competent midwife,” Griffin said.
Protesters at the courthouse argued more for the passing of a midwife bill than for Williams’ defense. Griffin said if previous legislation had passed the General Assembly, Williams would be eligible for a midwife license in Indiana.
If he charges her a fee, then, yes he does.
I'm not staking a claim on this mountain. In my experience, midwives can be a dangerous choice. The one I've known most recently was hard core pro abort Monologue loving liberal. She runs the department at KUMED. My husband and I took a course from a midwife but never turned the process over to her and had a back up in place which we used. There are a lot of ways for a family to have a good birth experience with the full medical profession available. It makes no sense to go the hippy dippy way anymore.
Some were nurses, well trained and very good. Others often had no training and on occasion killed mothers and babies.
Those are good points, and the HB1237 that Jennifer has been trying to get passed addresses this by setting up a licensing board to regulate midwifery.
As an example, there is one other "midwifery" case in Indiana recently. An untrained 72 year old in some religious cult ("The Church of the Firstborn") was charged after handling a birth that was 2 months premature. The baby died after a week in the hospital. This sort of nonsense is no more relevant to real midwifery than to hospitals. The lady wasn't trained, and no CPM in the nation would homebirth a baby that early.
If he charges her a fee, then, yes he does.
That's cute. For our second birth last August, my wife didn't call til 45 minutes before our daughter was born. And our midwife was 2 hours away. So I delivered. I guess I better not ask for any favors, eh? ;-)
OK, but your statement appears to be false. There is a way to get licensed as a midwife in Indiana. (I suspect that the midwife in this fatal incident was properly licensed, since she wasn't charged). It's just that your friend lacked the qualifications. You can get an RN with as little as 2 years of training. The defendant opted to not comply with the law.
Look, I read the stuff you posted a couple days ago on my own. Nurse-midwife and midwife are not the same thing in real life. And you aren't reading the article very carefully. It was the assistant/apprentice that was not charged. Jennifer, the one who handled the birth and is charged, is a CPM but is not licensed because there is no way to license midwives in Indiana, as I've repeatedly stated. She has had her state rep. (Peggy Welch) sponsor HB1237 many times trying to get a means of licensing established.
Getting an RN designation would be worthless to her. It's like demanding I get an architect's degree so I can keep being an engineer. If she was stuck as a Nurse-midwife she would essentially lose all her customers, who don't want the hospitals invading their bedrooms even if she could find a doctor who would hire her and let her do homebirth (highly unlikely).
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/330/7505/1416
Study on the safety of home birth with a CPM.
Chart showing licensing laws (or legal status) for midwifery in all states
HB1237
DIGEST OF INTRODUCED BILL
Licensure of midwives. Establishes the midwifery board. Sets qualifications for a certified professional midwife (CPM). Requires the board to: (1) develop peer review procedures; (2) require the purchase of liability insurance as a condition for licensure when the board determines liability insurance is sufficiently available; and (3) adopt rules limiting the scope of practice of CPMs to nonhospital settings. Makes it a Class B misdemeanor to practice midwifery without a license. Allows the board to specify circumstances under which a CPM may administer certain prescription drugs. Provides that a health care provider may not be held liable for the acts or omissions of a CPM or a licensed physician who has a collaborative agreement with the midwife. Allows certain individuals to act under the supervision of a CPM. Requires the office of Medicaid policy and planning to seek a waiver from the United States Department of Health and Human Services to allow Medicaid reimbursement for CPMs. Repeals former definition of "midwife" in medical malpractice law.
Using your definitions, one is legal and one is a felon in Indiana.
It does sound like the baby in this case might have lived if an MD had been available to do a C-Section.
You say that the article shows how home births are safer than hospital births but couldn't that also be due to the fact that if there is any hint of problems the midwife will send the mother to the hospital? Kind of like how private schools can kick out the bad students but public schools have to accept problem students.
In all states? The government has no business telling women how or where they can have their babies.
Note the key phrase in my tongue-in-chek answer......"charges her a fee".
A woman can have her kid wherever she pleases. However, if an individual performs medical procedures for a fee, then that individual is "practicing merdicine" and requires a State license.
As I said before, approach legislators, get petitions, and get the law changed. Failing that, you have no alternative but to obey the law. The midwife in question chose to disregard the law so she must deal with the consequences. I'm sure she knew that going in.
"
If a woman wants to have her baby at home with her husband's help, does he need to be a nurse?"
I don't know how that works - mothers do various things that nurses also do - the difference may be the fatality risk.
You cost the medical establishment to much money.
The big hospitals out there see market share lost due to you. So they try to legally push you out of the race.
It has nothing to do with a woman’s or child’s health. It has all to do with charging $6000 or more for a birth at a hospital that in reality is a natural process where for the most part NOTHING needs done. If pregnancy were a "medical condition" the way some try to portray it, the human race would have gone extinct.
If you take 100% pregnant women and look at them closely enough you'd see that near 100% fall out of one statistical norm or the other. How many women really efface exactly according to some statistical average? How many really gain weight according to this average? How many really grow according to this average? If you look hard enough you could argue that near all woman have "troubled" pregnancies that need pills, epidurals, forceps, an IV and lots of other BS that the hospital can all charge for.
Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist. But the trend to push the Nurse Midwife out of the picture is a pure financial one. Statistically, most birthing centers beat the hospitals hands down while being ½ to cost or less!
http://allenbirthingcenter.com/ (That’s where my wife will deliver in a week)
If admitted to a hospital they will “push” on her an epidural, “demand” she don’t eat and drink, “require” and IV……… What they want is the perfect patient; One that can’t move or do anything except nod yes to the Gods in the white lab coats.
The best healthcare does not always require the highest price tag. What you see developing here with midwifery is a systemic problem of our whole medical establishment.
Americans pay the most for healthcare world wide. But we have a lower life expectancy than many other Western industrialized nations. We have kids that are not even vaccinated against Polio! If I had been poor and had gone to the Plano Tenant hospital, no doubt my wife would have gotten some vitamin pills and got sent home. Since I have a good insurance and have a decent income, they will try to milk the cow as much as possible. Is that good healthcare? Does spending a lot equal good care? Why is it that we have a HIGHER infant death mortality rate than most other Western industrialized nations? At the same time we have the HIGHEST C-section rates, pay the most and use the most medication while also performing the most intrusive and intervention on mothers. Think about that. I’m not making this up! The facts – all sources back me up on that.
Healthcare in America is “big business”. We spend more on healthcare then on defense. Actually near 3.25 times what we spend on defense we spend on healthcare. The Nurse Midwife, birthing centers etc offer something which threatens the economic base of the medical industry. You won’t find too many midwives that “push” an epidural. Where can the big pharmaceutical firm make its money in this picture? Where can the big Tenant hospital make its money?
Is there really a “medical need” to stay in a hospital two nights after a normal healthy birth? Maybe the medical establishment has a propensity to see everything as a “medical condition” which needs surgical intervention and medication? Maybe it’s a cultural issue? Either way, my wife and I both speak multiple languages, we both are educated and she has her masters. We don’t consider ourselves ignorant, but we are no elitist jerks either. Nonetheless, my wife does NOT want to deliver in this hospital in Plano because she knows that their will be this constant guiding hand above her which “pushes” her to be induced, have an epidural, pop the bag of water, strip the membrane, have pitosin, stick lots of probes and needles in every orifice and do whatever. They can’t “help themselves”. After all, that baby needs to be out before shift change.
“Labor and delivery” has become a racket. It’s become a place where big bucks are made relatively easily with a low risk. What’s happening here has nothing to do with a woman’s or child’s best health interests in mind anymore.
A lot of your midwives ARE nurses (RN’s to be exact). In fact the one delivering our baby soon "teaches" at one of the schools in the DFW area. But ask yourself this. How many nurses at a hospital are RN’s and how many LPN’s?
Not to pick on you. But you demonstrate the typical "image" of what a layperson thinks a midwife is all about. And in typical manner, you think labor is a medical critical condition that needs close monitoring and lots of intervention by these skilled professionals.
I'm with you.
Re-read my post. It's a liberty issue. If you are willing to assume the risk of home birth, it should be your choice.
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