Parah
November 03 2007
WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO (other than gestating)
As someone with a vested interest in continued access to homebirth midwives in Ohio, I have found myself (as of sometime in October) the chair of the PR committee of a recently formed grassroots consumer organization intended to push for a change in Ohio's legislation. I have discovered in working for Ohio Families for Safe Birth, or OFSB, that I have a lot more useable time than I thought I did... at least, a lot more useable computer time (one does a fair bit of sitting around at this point in pregnancy...)

Ohio has no laws regulating direct-entry midwifery and for many years has been considered a state where midwifery is not explicitly legal, but generally tolerated. Many midwives like being in an unregulated state, with no licensure board looking over their protocols, and the general belief has been that as long as they don't cross the invisible "practicing medicine" line or have a bad outcome, they're pretty safe.

This is changing. Last month, a local midwife's home was raided and her equipment and files seized. Because charges have not been filed yet, I can't give more details, but one of the items specifically named on the search warrant was names, addresses and information about other unlicensed midwives. This is not an isolated incident, but part of a coordinated effort to eliminate independent midwives in all unregulated states.

My main project for OFSB has been overseeing the design, and writing or adapting almost all of the content, for the new webpage (someone who actually knows what they're doing did the actual coding.) It is finally ready: the Ohio Families for Safe Birth website, and I am quite proud of it.

As part of our ongoing PR strategy, I have also set up an OFSB blog, which I (and perhaps some other people as well) will be posting to, hopefully daily. You can get to it directly at safebirthohio.org/blog/. I set the blog up all by myself, because the real web designer was busy fixing a horrible glitch in the style sheet that only showed up in Windows XP IE browsers. It was surprisingly straightforward. We may have to stop paying Upsaid for something I actually know how to do myself now.



Posted by Sora at 2 : 27 pm
Hi Sora

Nice job with the website! Keep up the good fight, we will be praying for you all out in Ohio. Seems midwives are under attack all over the country these days.

Posted by Scott Terry at 7 : 56 pm on 11 . 03 . 07
God bless you, Sora! What a terrific contribution you are making. I've just spent an hour on the website, and topped it off with the pleasure of remembering the blessed event photographed and posted this week.

Posted by Mrs. Butler's Mother at 12 : 41 am on 11 . 05 . 07
Sora, have you thought about trying to screen Ricki Lake's documentary 'In Business of Being Born' in your city when it comes out? www.businessofbeingborn.com

Also, you might want to link up with The Birth Network. www.birthnetwork.org

There's an Ohio chapter or two. I'm part of a chapter here that has been pretty helpful in campaigning for changes in our local hospitals, which are very, very horrible.

Posted by sarah mosley at 10 : 09 am on 12 . 21 . 07
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