Links and Resources
Coalition for Improving Maternity Services (CIMS)
The Coalition for Improving Maternity Services (CIMS) is a coalition of individuals and national organizations with concern for the care and well-being of mothers, babies, and families. Our mission is to promote a wellness model of maternity care that will improve birth outcomes and substantially reduce costs. This evidence-based mother-, baby-, and family-friendly model focuses on prevention and wellness as the alternatives to high-cost screening, diagnosis, and treatment programs.
ICAN (International Cesarean Awareness Network)
ICAN is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve maternal-child health by preventing unnecessary cesareans through education, providing support for cesarean recovery and promoting vaginal birth after cesarean. There are 94 ICAN Chapters across North America, which hold educational and support meetings for people interested in cesarean prevention and recovery.
The Birth Survey
The Birth Survey is an on-going online consumer survey that asks women to provide feedback about their birth experiences. Women’s responses about specific providers and facilities will be available online to other women in their communities to help them decide where and with whom to birth. As they become available, the official facility-level intervention rates gathered from the state departments of health will be paired with the women’s survey responses to help families make their birthing decisions.
National Advocates for Pregnant Women
National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) works to secure the human and civil rights, health and welfare of all women, focusing particularly on pregnant and parenting women, and those who are most vulnerable - low income women, women of color, and drug-using women. NAPW seeks to ensure that women do not lose their constitutional and human rights as a result of pregnancy, that addiction and other health and welfare problems they face during pregnancy are addressed as health issues, not as crimes; that families are not needlessly separated, based on medical misinformation; and that pregnant and parenting women have access to a full range of reproductive health services, as well as non-punitive drug treatment services. By focusing on the rights of pregnant women, NAPW broadens and strengthens the reproductive justice, drug policy reform, and other interconnected social justice movements in America today.
http://www.advocatesforpregnantwomen.org/
The Big Push for Midwives
The Big Push for Midwives is a nationally coordinated campaign to advocate for regulation and licensure of Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and to push back against the attempts of the American Medical Association Scope of Practice Partnership to deny American families access to legal midwifery care.
http://www.thebigpushformidwives.org/
Citizens for Midwifery
Citizens for Midwifery – the only national consumer-based group promoting the Midwives Model of Care. CfM works to provide information and resources that promote the local midwife, as well as midwives and midwifery care across the country.
Childbirth Connection
Childbirth Connection is a national not-for-profit organization founded in 1918 as Maternity Center Association. Our mission is to improve the quality of maternity care through research, education, advocacy and policy. Childbirth Connection promotes safe, effective and satisfying evidence-based maternity care and is a voice for the needs and interests of childbearing families.
http://www.childbirthconnection.org
The Birth Network
The mission of BirthNetwork National is to promote the awareness and availability of Mother-Friendly maternity care.
BirthNetwork National is leading a grassroots movement based on the belief that birth can profoundly affect our physical, mental and spiritual well-being. BirthNetwork National advocates Mother-Friendly care, as defined by theMother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative (MFCI). By making informed choices and having confidence in the process, families can experience safe and satisfying childbirth.
Spinning Babies
Babies enter the world best when they are optimally positioned.
My Best Birth
A social network created by Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein.
Choices in Childbirth
An organization whose mission is to improve maternity care by providing the public, especially childbearing women and their families, with the information necessary to make fully informed decisions relating to how, where, and with whom they will give birth.
http://www.choicesinchildbirth.org
Midwives Aliance of North America
MANA is a professional organization for all midwives, recognizing the diversity of educational backgrounds and practice styles within the profession. Its goal is to unify and strengthen the profession of midwifery, thereby improving the quality of health care for women, babies, and communities.
The North American Registry of Midwives
NARM is an international certification agency whose mission is to establish and administer certification for the credential “Certified Professional Midwife” (CPM). CPM certification validates entry-level knowledge, skills, and experience vital to responsible midwifery practice. This international certification process encompasses multiple educational routes of entry including apprenticeship, self-study, private midwifery schools, college- and university-based midwifery programs and nurse-midwifery. Created in 1987 by the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA), NARM is committed to identifying standards and practices that reflect the excellence and diversity of the independent midwifery community in order to set the standard for North American midwifery.
DONA International
DONA International is the largest and oldest doula organization in the world. Drs. Marshall Klaus and John Kennell, Phyllis Klaus C.S.W., M.F.C.C., Penny Simkin, PT, and Annie Kennedy, all renowned experts in childbirth and newborns, founded DONA International in 1992. Their goal was to promote doula care – continuous emotional and physical support for women during labor and early postpartum.
Coalition for Breech Birth
A grassroots coalition advocating for change within the Canadian and US birthing Communities. The CBB believes that breech presentation is part of the normal spectrum of birthing positions and that families deserve to have complete information, free of “objection handling” or scare tactics to sway their decisions.
Special Scars
Web site and forum for women with Classical, Inverted T, J, Low Vertical, Upright T incisions.
American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists- News Releases
http://www.acog.org/from_home/newsrel.cfm
VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) Articles and Resources
ACOG’s 2010 Guidelines Comparison (PDF)
Press Release: Ob-Gyns Issue Less Restrictive VBAC Guidelines (ACOG, July 2010)
Does your hospital have a VBAC ban? ICAN’s VBAC Policy Database
Childbirth Connection: VBAC or Repeat C-Section
ICAN (International Cesarean Awareness Network): VBAC
Midwifery Today: What Every Midwife Should Know About ACOG and VBAC (Wagner)
TheUnnecesarean.com: HBAC Stories and VBAC Stories
VBAC.com: Informed Decisions About Maternity Care
History of VBAC in the United States
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