Dear Henry,

I am a very strong supporter of midwifery care. I think Obstetrician OB care has gotten way to medicalized, to the detriment of patients. Too much fetal monitoring, too much fetal testing, too many lab tests, ultrasounds, too much “fetal intolerance to labor,” too much”non-reasurring FHR,” etc. If we were this fragile as a species, we should have become extinct 100,000 years ago. All of these tests carry high false positive rates, which scare the patients and waste resources. Frankly, in labor suites across the country, it feels like a war zone - with yet another emergency just waiting to happen.

Daniel I. Edelstone, M.D.

Dr. Edelstone is a noted Maternal-Fetal Medicine expert, Professor and Vice Chair of Education, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, author of numerous research articles and co-author of Best Practice in Labor Ward Management. Visit his web site.

Dear Henry,

I am delighted to endorse North Carolina Physicians for Midwives. Optimal outcomes for mothers and babies will be achieved only when midwives and physicians work together in an environment in which midwives can consult, collaborate, and, when necessary, transfer care in an efficient and timely manner to physicians. Optimal maternity outcomes also depend on physicians acquiring the skills and knowledge from midwives that promote normal birth and successful breastfeeding. I congratulate your organization for promoting that goal.

Henci Goer

Henci Goer is an award-winning medical writer and internationally known speaker, the author of The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth. Her previous book, Obstetric Myths Versus Research Realities, is a highly-acclaimed resource for childbirth professionals. An independent scholar, she is an acknowledged expert on evidence-based maternity care. Goer has written consumer education pamphlets and numerous articles for magazines as diverse as Reader's Digest and the Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing. She served as project director and participated as an Expert Work Group member on the document, "Evidence Basis for the Ten Steps of Mother-Friendly Care."

Currently, she is a resident expert on Lamaze International's web site, the Lamaze Institute for Normal Birth. Now concentrating on writing and speaking, Goer was a doula (labor support professional) for over twenty years and a Lamaze educator for ten.

Visit her web site

Dear Henry,

How good it is to know that there is a North Carolina Physicians for Midwives. This is just the kind of organization that can help to reverse the influence of the anti-midwife propaganda campaign that was carried out a century ago in the US. The physicians belonging to this organization are a true credit to their profession.

Ina May Gaskin, CPM

Ina May is a world renowned author, activist and innovator. Well known for the seminal work, Spiritual Midwifery, her new books, Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth and Ina May's Guide to Breastfeeding, are now available.

She transformed her observation of increasing maternal mortality in the U.S. into The Safe Motherhood Quilt Project, a national effort to honor those women who have died of pregnancy-related causes during the past twenty years and to draw public attention to the unchanging maternal death rate in the United States.

Ina May developed the Gaskin Maneuver. The first obstetrical maneuver to be named after a midwife, it embodies the essence of midwifery by using simple body movements to facilitate a difficult birth. Recently selected as a Visiting Fellow at Morse College of Yale University, Ina May continues to delight listeners by infusing her sharp command of birth research and statistics with a touch of the wry humor that punctuates her writing. Visit her web site

Dear Henry,

As I discovered in my research, there is what I call a “scattered minority” of obstetricians who quietly support women’s access to midwifery-led care and out-of-hospital birth, and who are dismayed that the obstetric leadership oppose their efforts. It’s wonderful to see these practitioners standing up for women’s choice.

All best,

Jennifer

Jennifer Block, author of Pushed, The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care has been a journalist for eight years, writing and editing for magazines and newsweeklies, frequently covering women's health and politics and the intersection of the two.

Her work has appeared in the Village Voice, Ms., The Nation, Salon.com, Mother Jones, ELLE, and Plenty. Her investigative pieces have tackled such provocative issues as police harassment of street prostitutes, rape in the military, abortion tourism, and the politics of sex education.

A former editor at Ms. magazine, Jennifer was also a senior editor at the eco-lifestyle magazine Plenty and served as an editor of the revised classic, Our Bodies, Ourselves. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. Visit her web site

Dear Henry,

I am delighted to learn of the North Carolina Physicians for Midwives. We physicians take an oath to serve the health of the people and this, of course, includes childbirth and the right of the family to choose the kind of birth which is right for them. Midwifery is one option which should be available to all families as is the option of choosing where the birth will take place, be it in a hospital, birth center or their home. Excellent research has proven midwives to be as safe as physicians to attend low risk births and further excellent research has proven planned home birth to be as safe as hospital birth for low risk pregnant women. The families of North Carolina also have these rights and your organization can work to guarantee these rights for your families.

Sincerely,

Marsden Wagner M.D., M.S.

Marsden Wagner, born in San Francisco, his education at University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) included an M.D., clinical specialty training in pediatrics, then in perinatology (neonatology and obstetrics) followed by two years post-graduate study with an advanced scientific degree in perinatal science. Following several years of full time clinical practice and some years as a full time faculty member at UCLA, he was a Director of Maternal and Child Health for the California State Health Department. After six years as Director of the University of Copenhagen-UCLA Health Research Center, he was for 15 years Director of Womens and Children's Health for the World Health Organization. He is now an independent consultant.

With extensive experience in maternity care in industrialized countries, including midwifery and the appropriate use of technology during pregnancy and birth, he has consulted and lectured in over 50 countries and given testimony before the US Congress, British Parliament, French National Assembly, Italian Parliament, Russian Parliament and others. His publications, in 11 different languages, include 131 scientific papers, 20 book chapters and 14 books. Visit his web site

Dear Henry,

We are proud to endorse the NC Physicians for Midwives. Without the support of physicians such as Henry Dorn, midwifery will never be accessible to women in the United States who deserve to enjoy the full range of available birth options. As more low-risk women are choosing midwives for gynecological and obstetric care, it is crucial that the state laws are amended to allow midwives to practice legally in hospitals, birth centers, and homes. We need more physicians to support women’s choices and recognize that midwives are an invaluable asset to our maternity care system.

Abby Epstein & Ricki Lake

Filmmakers, The Business of Being Born and authors of Your Best Birth: Know All Your Options, Discover the Natural Choices, and Take Back the Birth Experience. Visit their web site

Dear Henry,

Oxytocin, the main hormone in childbirth, is also the ‘shy hormone’: It does not appear in any environment. It is only when a laboring woman can feel secure and unobserved that she can easily release effective peaks of this vital hormone. It is therefore easy to explain that the presence of an authentic midwife, perceived as a mother figure, does not disturb the physiological processes in the perinatal period. In an ideal world our mother is the prototype of the person with whom one can feel secure, without feeling observed or judged. Modern physiology is offering new keys to interpret the specific and irreplaceable role of the midwife

Best Wishes - Michel Odent

As a practitioner he developed the maternity unit at Pithiviers Hospital in France in the 1960s and '70s. He is familiarly known as the obstetrician who introduced the concept of birthing pools and home-like birthing rooms. His approach has been featured in eminent medical journals such as Lancet, and in TV documentaries such as the BBC film Birth Reborn. With six midwives he was in charge of about one thousand births a year and could achieve ideal statistics with low rates of intervention. After his hospital career he practiced home birth.

As a researcher he founded the Primal Health Research Center in London (UK), which focuses upon the long-term consequences of early experiences. An overview of the Primal Health Research data bank (www.birthworks.org/primalhealth) clearly indicates that health is to a great extent shaped during the primal period (from conception until the first birthday). It also suggests that the way we are born has long-term consequences in terms of sociability, aggressiveness or, otherwise speaking, capacity to love.

Author of approximately 50 scientific papers, Odent has 11 books published in 21 languages to his name. In his books he developed the art of turning traditional questions around, looking at the question of “how to develop good health” rather than at that of “how to prevent disease,” and at the question of “how the capacity to love develops,” rather than at that of “how to prevent violence.” His books The Scientification of Love and The Farmer and the Obstetrician raise urgent questions about the future of our civilizations. His latest book, The Functions of the Orgasms: The Highways to Transcendence was published in April 2009. Visit his web site