It’s National Midwifery Week this week and the American College of Nurse-Midwives has launched a week long campaign to show how #MidwivesMakeADifference. Doulas and midwives both believe that birth is normal and that women should make informed decisions about their maternity care.
ACNM has this to say about midwifery care: “Even though the general public often associates midwives exclusively with maternity care, many women visit a midwife for a range of services before and after pregnancy. Midwives are critically important in providing care to women from adolescence to beyond menopause, but their expert knowledge of women’s health is often overlooked.”
For this year’s National Midwifery Week, ACNM is launching Our Moment of Truth™: A New Understanding of Midwifery Care. With this national campaign, ACNM looks to raise the bar for women’s health and re-introduce midwives and midwifery care as important options that should be the norm for women’s health care services in the United States. The campaign also encourages women to learn about their maternity health care options and become advocates for their own health care. I think we doulas can certainly get behind that!
There are several ways to support or get involved with the campaign including:
- Share a story
- Post information about midwives on social media. ACNM has created a handy social media toolkit here.
- Take the “Your Health Promise” pledge.
The Our Moment of Truth website also has a useful Fact Sheet and a great handout that defines midwives and their role in health care. The “Will my midwife provide pain relief options….” question in the Women’s Health Information handout is certainly one doulas can relate to! You can find these handouts here.
Happy National Midwifery Week!
— Adrianne Gordon, MBA, CD(DONA)