Legal Cases in the News

Ventura Star: Midwife surrenders licenses to regulatory boards

A Simi Valley midwife accused of repeated acts of gross negligence has surrendered her midwife and nursing licenses to two state regulatory boards.

Marcia Kay McCulley, 41, who operated the Whole Woman Birth Center in Simi, gave up her ability to act as a midwife in a November settlement with the Medical Board of California. The state agency announced the decision in its newsletter this month.

Philadelphia Inquirer: Pa. midwife fights to keep working

Diane Goslin misses the feel of a pregnant belly beneath her hands, the tiny beats of life pulsing inside.

Months have passed since she has guided a woman through the pains of childbirth in the way she believes nature intended: at home, without drugs, surrounded by family and friends.

Though she keeps busy tending her organic garden, home-schooling the youngest of her five children and renovating the two bed-and-breakfast inns that she and her husband run in Lancaster County, the 50-year-old midwife is consumed by the controversial legal case that has brought her career, her way of life, to an uneasy halt.

Bradenton Herald: Judge erred in midwives case

An appellate court has ruled that two Bradenton women convicted of illegally practicing as midwives will get a new trial.

In June 2006, a judge sentenced Linda McGlade, and her daughter-in-law, Tanya McGlade, to 2½ years in prison after a jury found them guilty of the crime. The women helped a relative, Mara McGlade, 25, deliver a baby boy at home in December 2004. Mara McGlade died two days after the delivery.

But today, the Second District Court of Appeal ruled that the judge who presided over the trial, Edward Nicholas, improperly instructed jurors on the charge before they began deliberations.

April 25, 2008 | Filed Under Politics | Leave a Comment 

Healthy women having too many ultrasounds, says expert

From The West.com.au:

Ultrasounds are overused in healthy pregnant women but not used enough in those who are at real risk of losing their baby, a leading Australian obstetrician has warned.

Associate Professor Janet Vaughan, from the University of Sydney, said multiple scans were increasingly being sought by healthy pregnant women while others who had genuine medical reasons for an early scan were missing out.

She said it was important to offer ultrasounds to women at higher risk of losing their baby, such as those who had had an ectopic pregnancy previously or were suffering unexplained bleeding or abdominal pain. Giving at-risk women an early ultrasound meant that in about 75 per cent of cases doctors could detect any problems.

Professor Vaughan said there was a strong argument that under normal circumstances pregnant women should only have one ultrasound, ideally at 12 to 13 weeks. At-risk patients should be scanned at five weeks, when the foetal sac was visible.

She said for most healthy women the scan’s only real value was checking the stage of the foetus.

CATHY O’LEARY MEDICAL EDITOR

April 24, 2008 | Filed Under In the News | Leave a Comment 

Pardon the dust

I’m fidgeting with the layout so I can once again include referral categories and a blogroll. Stay tuned for improvements and thanks to all who have sent their links to me.

Oh– it occurred to me earlier today that my previous post, “Google the Midwife” shouldn’t be read as Google, the Midwife like the name of a character. You know like Puff, the Magic Dragon. I think if that caught on I’d have to pay a hefty franchise fee ;)

April 16, 2008 | Filed Under Blogging | Leave a Comment 

Google the Midwife: How many births per month?

One thing I enjoy doing is reading the log generated by my visitor counter.  It allows me to see where my visitors come from (links through email, articles, other blogs) and the keywords they Google that bring them here.  One search string that hit this site recently was:

how many births does a midwife handle a month?

There are many variables involved in the answer, such as does the the midwife…

Generally speaking a midwife in a hospital based partnership practice might share the duties for upwards of 100 births a month depending on her geographical location.  Conversely a midwife who has a solo practice attending home births may only see 2-5 births a month.  Keep in mind the population of women choosing a home birth in the US is 1% of the population so depending on her location a home birth midwife who has 5 births per month is “busy” by convention.  The median number I have encountered in my reading and practical experience for a home birth, free-standing birth center combination practice ranges from 10 to 40 births per month with up to 5 midwives in the practice sharing call.  Whenever possible midwives try to keep their client-midwife ratio within a reasonable number to provide the personalized care that has become the hallmark of midwifery.

April 14, 2008 | Filed Under Google the Midwife | 2 Comments 

MAINE: Midwives licensing bill rejected; dispensing of some drugs OK’d

From the Bangor News:

After significant debate and a strong lobbying effort by Maine physicians, lawmakers on Friday derailed a proposal to license “lay” midwives, voting instead to authorize them to purchase, possess and administer a short list of prescription drugs often needed during a home birth.

This really is baffling to me. The Maine Medical Association “successfully” thwarted efforts to create a system wherein Certified Professional Midwives would have to verify their training and credentialing with the North American Registry of Midwives to obtain a license to practice midwifery and provide home birth services but gave them the freedom to administer drugs like lidocaine, oxygen, pitocin, methergine, and presumably misoprostol to control bleeding. The logic escapes me. How do they know these midwives unworthy of licenses due to their inferior education (tongue in cheek my friends) are trained to use them? And why would any midwife in Maine push for a license now that the MMA has allowed them to practice freely without a license and with the freedom to stop a hemorrhage or repair a tear using drugs that another state would charge as practicing medicine without a license?  I hope the MMA will come to their senses and work with the midwives to design a licensing process for Certified Professional Midwives in Maine.

In any event, congratulations to the families of Maine, the MMA has just made home birth a bit safer for you in that your Certified Professional Midwife will no longer fear carrying the medications that will make birth safe for you and your baby.

The rest of the article is after the jump. Read more

April 14, 2008 | Filed Under Home Birth, Midwives/Midwifery, Politics | 3 Comments 

Next Page →