Welcome back from your holiday weekend! In case you have not heard the wonderful news, the NY State Assembly has cleared the Midwife Modernization Act on July 1st. New York is now one step closer to granting women the right and access to midwifery care and home-births should they chose. With the passing of this act, it will no longer be a requirement for licensed professional midwives to have a “written practice agreement” with a physician or hospital as a prerequisite to practice. After the closing of St. Vincent’s, the only hospital in NYC to sign this agreement for midwives, women where stripped of their option to have a home-birth as the midwives were no longer legally allowed to practice homebirths.

Thanks to New York State Association of Licensed Midwives (NYSALM),Choices in Childbirth, BirthNet, Rochester Area Birth Network (RABN), Buffalo Birth and the various physicians including many OB/GYN physicians for spear heading the rally cry and for the thousands of people who signed petitions and called their legislators to overturn the WPA requirement and support the MMA.

Now, all that is needed for the bill to go into affect is Governor Patterson’s signature and 90 clearing days!

I will keep you all posted

Tags: BirthNet, Buffalo Birth, Choices in Childbirth (CIC), homebirths, midwifery modernization act, midwives, New York Friends of Midwives (NYFOM), New York State Association of Licensed Midwives (NYSALM, NY, nyc, NYS, Rochester Area Birth Network (RABN)

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