Midwifery debate promises to go away

The fight over licensed direct-entry midwives is apparently settled, but it's not going away.

After seven substitutions and negotiations that both sides say have gone on for more years than they want to think about, SB93 was approved unanimously this morning by the House Health and Human Services Committee.

The full House has six more days of the session to address the bill which defines direct-entry midwifery, amends standards of mandatory transfers of a client to a hospital and defines a normal birth.

Testimony this morning was all sweetness and light — and short: Two representatives from the licensed midwife group and two from the medical community thanked each other for finally working out an agreement and committed to not bringing the dispute back to the Legislature until at least 2011.

Legitimacy through licensing was sought by 16 midwives three years ago. The Legislature approved the Direct-Entry Midwife Act in 2005 which sanctioned the practice of in-home deliveries through apprenticeship rather than through a state-certified education courses.

The process of writing the bill into Utah Code became problematic because the act used the term "normal birth" when the phrase is not defined and has allowed direct-entry midwives to practice beyond the scope of their training, proponents of the bill said.

Opponents disputed the claims and said it was just another example of the medical establishment exaggerating things to try put a stop to apprenticing.

Both sides thanked each other for the hard work to reach a compromise and consensus. Testimony was obviously taken by the committee to have each representative state for the record that they would not bring the issue back to lawmakers Each did and ended their brief comments with, "and I'll leave it at that."

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E-mail: jthalman@desnews.com