Reply to Evelyn Muhlhan - another homebirth midwife bites the dust?

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Reply to "Evelyn Muhlhan - another homebirth midwife bites the dust?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Who determines recklessness? One option is the organization that certifies midwives. Another option, which you can't avoid no matter what regime we have, is a prosecutor, judge, and jury. In extreme cases a woman may seek criminal charges if she thinks her birth attendant has been criminally negligent.

How do the prosecutor and jury decide what has crossed that line? They would hear evidence from experts. I take it you would want to bar OBs as experts and limit it to midwives. I doubt a court would accept that but the midwife could certainly present evidence from those who found her actions appropriate.

The idea of who gets to judge professional proficiency comes up in all areas. I see why you think it is harder here because of bias from the OB community but that doesn't mean we should throw up our hands and let anyone call themselves a midwife. [/quote]

I agree with your post, for the most part. The thing that really bothers me about so many of these cases that become controversial is that the complaints are not coming from the parents, who are concerned they've been treated unfairly. They're coming from other medical professionals - doctors, staff of hospitals, etc. I understand that those people are the ones who have to "clean up the mess" from failed homebirths, but they are not the parents of the child. They are not the clients of the midwife. They are not affiliated with the situation. It has always been weird to me that doctors not affiliated with the child in question get to be the complaining party when things like this happen.

And this is not a case of "letting anyone call themselves a midwife". This is a woman who has 20+ years of being a CNM. My issue is more that no other CNMs sit on the review board for the professional organization sanctioning her. My best friend is a RN. There is a big difference between the job performed by a CNM, an OR nurse, an ER nurse, etc. CNM is a specialization that you get post-regular nursing school. For a review board to adequately judge the skills of this CNM, she needs to be reviewed by at least one other person that shares her specialization.

I wonder how the CNM posting earlier feels about this aspect of things.[/quote]

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