2007 National Midwifery Week Events

Let us know what you're planning to do. ACNM encourage chapters and midwifery practices to share how they will celebrate National Midwifery Week. Send information about your event to Rebecca Jacob.

Family Health and Birth Center Open House, Washington, DC
October 11, 2007 - from 6 - 8pm.
The Family Health and Birth Center is holding an open house and film screening of the new documentary "Unnatural Causes" with its partners, the Healthy Babies Project and the Developing Families Center.  The discussion that will follow the film screening will feature community leaders and our former clients talking about what we can do to stop health disparities in Washington, DC and elsewhere.  

Mayor Fenty Signs Proclamation Celebrating National Midwifery Week. Click here to view the press release.

Denver Health
Here at Denver Health, a level three safety net institution, we are planning many events for Nurse Midwifery Week. Please see the calendar. In addition we got Mayor Hickenlooper of Denver to sign a proclamation. Hooray. We also are hoping to have the media come do a story on the midwifery service here. We pass out pamphlets on Today's Midwife in English and Spanish and the Listen to Women buttons.

Eliza Johnson, MSN, CNM
Lead Midwife Denver Health

New York City

On October 6, 2007, the New York City Chapter of the ACNM (Region II, Chapter 1) celebrated Midwifery Week with our 5th annual Miles for Midwives 5k. It was another gorgeous day, and 255 racers came out to show their support. Forty-two midwives were among the registrants, and they were given bright yellow race numbers to help make them clearly identifiable. This event raised money for the chapter as well as for Friends of the Birth Center, a local organization working hard to establish a freestanding birth center in New York. This year we were able to raise over $4000 for the chapter, and were able to give Friends of the Birth Center over $1300. In addition to age-group medals, we continued our tradition of awarding medals for special categories, such as first midwife -- congratulations to Beth Loveless, this year’s winner! We were very excited to welcome visits from two area politicians as well. Brooklyn Deputy Borough President Yvonne Graham presented a proclamation expressing support and appreciation for the excellent care and superior outcomes that midwives provide, and also told runners that she herself was delivered by a midwife. And City Councilmember Tony Avella kicked off the race with a short speech and then the “ready, set, go”. After the race, runners enjoyed refreshments donated by local businesses and visited information tables offering women’s health and other information. Then our youngest participants gathered for our favorite part of the day, the pee wee race! Check out the great photographs from this day at http://www.nycmidwives.org/?PageID=41. We welcome any inquiries from other chapters about organizing events like this. It’s a great way to raise awareness as well as much needed funding!

-Karen Trister Grace, CNM and Kristin Richman, CNM
Miles for Midwives Organizers

ktrister@yahoo.com
kristincnm@earthlink.net

Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center

The midwives at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon New Hampshire were inspired by the photo and description of the "community footprints" found on the back page of the JMWH volume 52, no 4 July/August 2007. Since it's publication we have been collecting footprints from every baby born on our service, we are taking a print without any identifying information and making a display of footprints similar to the ones in the photo. We are printing up a banner that celebrates midwifery with the words "born into the loving hands of a midwife". This display will be prominently situated in our medical center for the entire week. We plan to keep this up as a tradition and celebrate each year with a growing display.

Karen Schelling CNM

Colorado

Colorado is celebrating National Nurse-Midwifery Week by presenting the 4th Annual Nurse Midwife Symposium and Silent Auction on Friday,October 5th in Denver at St. Joseph Hospital. CNMs and CNM supporters will share information on a variety of topics. ACNM CEUs are offered. Monies raised will help us to pay for our State Lobbyist.
At St. Joseph Hospital, the OB Triage Unit, which is staffed by CNMs under the leadership of Mary Wilterdink, CNM, will have a display introducing us, our work, and our baby pictures!

Ruth E. Parker CNM

West Virginia

We are holding an open house at Shenandoah Women's Health for the mothers and children who birthed with midwives. It is Friday Oct. 12th from 3-5 PM in Martinsburg.

Kathryn Albright, CNM

Massachusetts ACNM Chapter of Nurse Midwives Press release

South Carolina

We are a group of 5 CNMS working in three different practices in 3 different counties in rural South Carolina. All five midwives attend births at only one hospital. The midwives work with five obstetricians, and we attend close to 75% of the vaginal births at Clarendon Memorial Hospital in Manning, SC. If we gain another midwife, or lose another doctor, we'll have them outnumbered!

In honor of National Midwifery Week, we sponsored a Breastfeeding Seminar for the nursing staff provided by Amy Chappell, RN, a Lactation Consultant, and wife of Tom Chappell, CNM. Tom is one of the five hard-working midwives in our area, and is also our state's one and only ACNM chapter chairperson. The nursing staff was grateful and pleased with this opportunity.

We also designed a bulletin board for the hospital lobby which will be up all during the month of October. It features photos of the five of us at work. We have received many comments from hospital staff and visitors. Many have wondered why our photos are not also on permanent and prominent display with the "wall of doctors" photos nearby. What's a crafty, guerilla marketing midwife to do in this situation, I wonder?

Each baby we caught during that week received a card signed by the attending midwife. The beautiful birth announcements began with "Into the Hands of a Midwife" and had a place for baby's footprints.

And finally, we sponsored a Family Social Open House and invited all women, children, and families whose lives had been touched by a Midwife. Despite our last minute advertising efforts, the social was well-received. We hope to make it an annual event.

Word to the wise, we also contacted the local paper to run a series of articles about us midwives. Despite our repeated admonishments, the paper ran an article which portrayed the hospital poorly, which was not our intention. The goal of the article was discuss the great qualities of midwifery, and also draw attention to our local birthing center. The nurse's were upset by the article, and we felt like terribly misquoted celebrities. Next time, we plan to either write our OWN article. Nobody gets ahead by making others look badly.

Next year, it will be even bigger and better celebration of National Midwifery Week.

Frannie Avery

Nebraska

Here in central Nebraska we contacted the two local papers for the two cities that we have offices. They both did an article on midwifery, one with a big color picture and one with a full single column article.

Barbara Peckham-Devine