Hello my fellow California midwives! 

This is your fall update regarding national level policy and advocacy from the ACNM National Government Affairs Committee (NGAC) and how you can get involved in this work.

First order of business: I am actively seeking someone to replace me in my role as your NGAC representative, since I will be transitioning into my new role as CNMA President Elect. Please let me know if you would like more information about this fun and exciting opportunity! 

Fall Updates

National level Advocacy has been hard at work since the annual meeting.

We completed our fourth successful Off The Hill Week. Do you want to join in the next one? Dates are January 6th-10th.

FY 2020 Appropriations are in process the House Bill allots $2.5 million allocated to accredited midwifery education programs under the Title VII scholarships for disadvantaged students program. This funding would enable CNM, CM and CPM students to apply for scholarships through their institution. Eligible entities must establish or have a program in place for recruiting and retaining midwifery students from disadvantaged backgrounds, including students who are members of racial and ethnic minority groups.

Out legislative push for the year is the Midwives for MOMs Bill HR 3849. We need midwives writing letters, calling and making visits. This bill allots for an expansion of an accredited nurse-midwifery school or program. The bill also increases the number of preceptors at clinical training sites to precept students training to become CNMs. It prioritizes programs that seek to increase racial and ethnic representation and those who agree to serve in a HPSA. This is how we increase our workforce! More information on this bill is below.

Work is being done on a national level midwifery Privileging bill. More to come on this in the coming months!

Midwives for Maximizing Optimal Maternity Services Act (MOMs Act) HR 3849:

Reps. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) and Jamie Herrera Beutler (R-WA) introduced this legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives on July 18th  to establish two new programs/funding streams under Title VII and Title VIII of the Public Health Service Act. We NEED midwives and student midwives across the country to take action on this legislation by reaching out to their members of congress to voice your support of this bill! You can also take action on voter voice here!

Summary: This bill allots for expansion of accredited nurse-midwifery schools and programs, and also increases the number of preceptors at clinical training sites to precept students training to become CNMs. It prioritizes programs that seek to increase racial and ethnic representation and those who agree to serve in a HPSA. This is how we increase our workforce!

Specifics of Title VIII Program: Establishes a new "Midwifery Expansion Program" for accredited midwifery education programs that train nurse-midwifery students. HRSA may provide grants to Schools of Nursing for: direct support of SNMs; establishment of expansion of accredited nurse-midwifery schools and programs; and securing, preparing or providing support for increasing the number of preceptors at clinical training sites to precept students training to become CNMs. Prioritization will be giving to programs that seek to increase racial and ethnic representation and those who agree to serve in a HPSA.

Specifics of Title VII Program: Recognizes "Midwifery Schools and Programs" as eligible entities to receive grant funding under the Title VII program. HRSA may provide grants to accredited midwifery education programs that are not within schools of nursing (e.g., SUNY, Jefferson & Baystate) for: direct support of midwifery students (CM, CPM and CNM students who are in programs NOT within schools of nursing); establishment of expansion of accredited midwifery schools and programs; and securing, preparing or providing support for increasing the number of preceptors at clinical training sites to precept students training to become CMs, CPMs or CNMs.

Again, prioritization will be giving to programs that seek to increase racial and ethnic representation and students who agree to serve in HPSA.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks!

Paris Paris Maloof-Bury, CNMA President ElectNational Government Affairs Committee Representative to California(805)415-2553

The ballot for the open board positions for CNMA closed this past week and CNMA is excited to announce the following candidates were elected into their positions:

President Elect; Paris Maloof-Bury

Secretary: Alison Young

Northern Regional Rep: Jillian Cauley

Southern Regional Rep: Betsy Jenkins

Student Rep: To be announced at the Annual Meeting.

President Elect:

Paris Maloof-Bury, CNM, RNC-OB, IBCLC

Paris Maloof-Bury has been caring for women and families for 14 years. Before becoming a nurse-midwife, she began her career as an RN in 2005, and worked in Telemetry, L&D, high risk antepartum, as a lactation consultant in the NICU and outpatient settings, and as a nurse educator providing labor support and lactation education to staff nurses. She also spent many years as a childbirth educator, running support groups for new mothers, and moderating online breastfeeding support groups. She currently works at Sutter Health in Davis, California, where she provides care for women during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period, as well as termination and contraceptive care.

Paris has had the great honor to serve her profession in both leadership and service positions, locally and nationally throughout her career. She currently serves on the Health Policy Committee with the California Nurse Midwives Association, and on the National Government Affairs Committee for the American College of Nurse Midwives. Early in her career she was chosen for AWHONN’s Emerging Leader Program, served as the AWHONN chapter coordinator for Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties, and was co-author of AWHONN's position statement "Continuous Labor Support for Every Woman." She remains a contributing writer for AWHONN’s consumer-facing publication Healthy Mom and Baby and serves on its Editorial Advisory Board. She was a contributing writer for the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative's Toolkit on Supporting Vaginal Birth and served on ACOG’s Speaker Bureau, speaking on preventing the primary cesarean section. She served as Vice-Chair of the Breastfeeding Coalition of Ventura County, and as their Chair of Policy and Advocacy. She served on the Maternal Mental Health Coalition of Ventura County, and is now a member of the Maternal Mental Health Collaborative of Yolo County. When time allows, she enjoys speaking on labor support and lactation at workshops and conferences across the country.

Paris believes that every woman deserves gentle, respectful, evidence-based care, and works tirelessly to shape the culture, policies, and paradigms that determine the care we deliver and receive. She currently lives in Sacramento and feels grateful for the ability to spend her spare time lobbying in support of women’s health care and social justice, and advocating for CNMs at state BRN meetings. She looks forward to a time when every midwife in California can practice independently and to the full extent or their education and training, and when every woman has access to high quality midwifery care.

Paris and her husband Lance have two beautiful sons, a dog, a cat, and two fish. They enjoy camping, bike rides, gardening, playing music, and dancing.

Secretary

Alison Young, MSN, CNM

Ali studied to be a midwife at Johns Hopkins and Shenandoah University. Before becoming a midwife Ali worked at 3 different birth centers and was a doula for many years. Ali has caught babies in the US at a large urban teaching hospital, a small rural hospital in California, a birth center with hospital privileges, and in Africa in a low resource setting. Ali currently practices in Vallejo at Planned Parenthood providing family planning and reproductive health services. Ali’s passions include: providing access to both fertility and abortion services, reproductive health justice and anti-racism work. She resides in Vallejo with her two kids and husband.

Southern California Representative/2nd term:

Betsy Jenkins, CNM, MPH

Betsy is the Southern California Representative of the CNMA and Director of Midwifery Services at Eisner Health, an FQHC Community Clinic in Los Angeles. Betsy received her undergraduate and Masters in Public Health degrees at UCLA. She received her BSN at CSULA and nurse-midwifery education at LAC-USC. Betsy has practiced full scope midwifery for over 25 years in both private practice and community health settings. As Director of Midwifery Services, she oversees the midwifery practice at two hospitals: Martin Luther King Community Hospital and California Hospital. She has long worked with the Medical Director of Women's Services to promote a model MD/CNM collaborative practice for our patient population with a strong focus on perinatal safety, low NTSV cesareans and high VBAC success rates. In the coming year, she hopes to work with a recent CMQCC initiative to improve Birth Certificate reporting accuracy and better reflect the number of CNM deliveries recorded in the state. When not working, Betsy is involved in caring for her two grandsons (the second born just 3 weeks ago unexpectedly in my home with me as the midwife!) and has a passion for long distance cycling, where I volunteer as a Training Ride Leader for the AIDS/LifeCycle event annually.

Northern California Representative/2nd term

Jillian Cauley, RN, CNM

Jillian is returning for a second term as a representative to Northern California. She graduated with honors from University of San Francisco and from Georgetown University’s distance learning women’s health program in 2017. She worked as an emergency room and intensive care nurse and she’s been a midwife since July 2017 working in both a hospital and out-of hospital birth center. She loves being an advocate and service provider for her queer community and was an active participant in creating the Anti-racism and reproductive justice committee for CNMA. She works to provide trauma informed obstetric and gynecologic care and ensures informed consent is the heart of how she speaks to her patients.

Thank you to all who took the time to vote for our new Board members to CNMA!

We look forward to a productive year with our new President Elect, Secretary, Student Rep, and continuing Regional Reps.  

Congratulations and welcome to our new incoming BOD members!!

California Nurse-Midwives Association

SEPT 2019 | Newsletter

https://www.cnma.org/news/categories/newsletter

Or view as a GOOGLE DOC

Register for the 2019 Annual CNMA Meeting on October 5th in LA!

Register for the 2019 Annual CNMA FUNDRAISER in LA!

Sign Up for Midwife Airbnb for the LA Annual Meeting

My Birth Matters Campaign

CNMA’s Bylaws For Review

The Women and Families of Napa Need Your Voice!!

Questions? News? Want to get involved?

Register for the 2019 Annual CNMA Meeting on October 5th in LA!

Register here!

Cost of Registration:

100.00 for members (Non-members receive the 100.00 rate if you show evidence of joining CNMA when you register. Now is a GOLDEN opportunity to join!!)

145.00 for non-members

75.00 for students

Register for the 2019 Annual CNMA FUNDRAISER in LA!

Register here!

Time & Location

Oct 04, 6:00 PM @Oeno Vino at Atwater Village, 3111 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90039, USA

About The Event

Please come to CNMA's annual fundraising event: A Wine and Cheese Social!

Cost $20.00 This fee will provide a drink ticket, an amazing venue, and a raffle and/or silent auction. There will be a wide variety of food and additional drink for purchase.

CNMA will split the proceeds with the LA Chapter of CNMA.

Sign Up for Midwife Airbnb for the LA Annual Meeting!

Join the spreadsheet HERE if you can host or would like to stay locally with a fellow midwife!

My Birth Matters Campaign

New materials available from the My Birth Matters campaign! As you likely know, the goal of My Birth Matters is to help medically low-risk, first-time pregnant women and birthing people have informed and meaningful conversations with their health care providers about C-Sections -- and avoid those that are not absolutely necessary.

We are striving to ensure that as many pregnant women and birthing people as possible have access to the campaign materials -- and for that reason -- we’re asking for your continued partnership with dissemination throughout California.

Visit CMQCC.org to view materials, videos, and more!

CNMA’s Bylaws For Review

Dear CNMA Members,

Please review the revised CNMA Bylaws. We will vote to formally adopt these at our upcoming Annual meeting on October 5th.

See the highlighted changes to the Bylaws below:

• Gender Neutral language

• Creation of a Past President Position

• Creation of language in our Specific Purposes that focuses on Inclusion Equity and Diversification; and addressing Disparities.

• Creation of a "retirement dues" category ($50.00)

• Changing the composition of the BOD to represent underrepresented groups

• Streamlining the balloting/election process

• Creating a means for greater fiscal accounting

Thank you,

Kathleen Belzer, CNMA President

The Women and Families of Napa Need Your Voice!!

CNMA would like to bring an important issue to the attention of our members which is occurring in Napa County.

St. Joseph’s and Adventist Hospitals are negotiating a Joint Operating Agreement. A JOA is NOT a merger, it is a contractual agreement whereby services are shared and departments consolidated in an effort to reduce duplication of services and thereby, cost. Although there are representatives of both hospitals in various counties in northern California, Napa County is the only county that is served exclusively by both faith-based organizations, Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa and St. Helena Hospital in Angwin. As proposed, 5 years from the approval of the JOA, maternity services will be joined; the Birth Center at St. Helena Hospital will close and Queen of the Valley will assume all services related to maternal health and birth.

The implications for this consolidation are unsettling and unprecedented. If QVH, a faith-based hospital, is the only facility available to women in Napa County, their care will be dictated by the doctrine of the Catholic Church. Women will need to seek care out of the county (Davis, San Francisco) for sterilization, immediate post birth contraception and standard of care management of missed abortion in the presence of a heartbeat. Already, there is no access to abortion of any kind or at any gestation in this community. When the SHH Birth Center closes, access to nurse midwifery care, a 30 year tradition in Napa County, will cease.

What can we do? The CA Attorney General, Javier Becerra, will make a decision in September on the JOA. His options are: approve the JOA as proposed, deny the JOA, or approve the JOA with conditions. CNMA’s position is to urge the Attorney General to safeguard the reproductive rights of women in Napa county. Among these being that QVH/Adventist commit to providing basic reproductive health and family planning services including tubal ligations, Long Acting Reversible Contraceptives, miscarriage management, and pregnancy options counseling within an institution of a non faith-based healthcare organization in Napa. Also, that reproductive healthcare be available to every Napa resident, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. Please take a minute to write to Deputy Attorney General Scott Chan at scott.chan@doj.ca.gov.

Questions? News? Want to get involved?

Email us at info@cnma.org

That's all for this month's issue. Catch you next time!

-CNMA MEDIA TEAM

Visit us at cnma.org

This newsletter will be archived on our website at cnma.org/news