Pushing for VBACS
attorney travel fund
We have secured and paid for the attorney that will be fighting for a
woman's right to choose a birth center setting for her VBAC. We have
paid her fee in full and just need a little help flying her to
Tallahasee. Due to the fact that the state acted with NO NOTICE to open
the rules governing birth centers, the plane ticket is $600. We need 60
people willing to donate $10 now, so we can get her there. This amazing
attorney has taken this case for a fraction of her usual fee and has a one month old baby she needs to get right back to. Please help us make
her travel more eficient by helping pay for her flight.
Get Involved!
Help prevent the Closure of the Women's Center at Jackson South, in Miami-Dade County!
As many of you know, I am a Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM) who, with my CNM collegues, has been working in the Jackson South Community Hospital (JSCH) Women's Center since 2006. Last year, our service provided obstetric and gynecologic care to over 2000 women who live in Miami-Dade County.
In the past weeks, there has been an abundance of news regarding the financial turmoil facing the Jackson Health System, of which my service is a part. There has been talk of lay-offs and departmental closures, and while no one knows exactly who will be cut or when, there is reason to believe that the closure of the JSCH Women's Center is being discussed.
Sure, I have an interest in keeping my job, and to be included in a mass lay off would be unfortunate, but I would recover. However, for many of the women in our community, the elimination of women's hospital services in this area would be tragic, as many would completely lose their access to reproductive health care.
So, my friends, this is what I am asking of you. Please take a few minutes from your busy schedules, to write to some of the people who have influence in this decision making process (I will list contact information below).
Some key points to address (pick one or more, stick with those that are nearest and dearest to your hearts):
-a publically funded community hospital such as Jackson South should focus on primary and preventive care services, which include maternity care and other women's reproductive health care; while the services being built at Jackson South (weight loss surgery, plastic surgery and highly specialized robotic prostate surgery) are important, they are likely to benefit only a wealthy few
-health care for women and health care for the poor are marginalized more and more in our society; to close the Women's Center at Jackson South would be discriminatory
-Jackson South is the only hospital in the county staffed 24/7 by Certified Nurse Midwives and therefore the only hospital facility in which a woman has a choice to have her birth attended by a CNM
-Jackson South has the lowest cesarean section rate (29%) in Miami Dade County, with the midwifery service having an even lower rate of 26% [FYI the cesarean section rate at Kendall Regional is an astonishing 75%], with no increase in the rates of maternal or infant injury or death
-Please focus on exanding the midwifery service at Jackson South so that women can receive continuous prenatal care with the midwives who will attend their deliveries, provide them with family planning services and counsel them through menopause
The most important person to contact is your county commissioner (find at ). A letter would be best, but an email or phone call would also be significant. Remind them that you live in their district, that you vote, and that it is your tax dollars (via sales and property taxes) that help pay for Jackson.
Letters, emails, phone calls to the board members of the Public Health Trust are also important. Find contact information at
Also, the president and CEO of Jackson:
Eneida Roldan, MD, MPH, MBA
President and Chief Executive Officer
Jackson Memorial Hospital
1611 NW 12th Avenue
Miami, FL 33136-1096
Less important, but also significant would be communication with your state and federal representatives, including Governor Crist, as well as President Obama.
For information on how to contact your Florida state and federal representatives:
To reach Governor Crist:
Phone: 850-488-7146
Fax: 850-487-0801
Mailing Address:
Office of the Governor
The Capitol
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001
And:
President Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Please include your e-mail address
202-456-1111 (phone)
202-456-2461 (fax)
It is important that communications reach these people this week, so the sooner the better. Also, please, please, please, forward this to everyone that you know.
Thank you.
Click here to sign our petition in support of a Mother Friendly Hospital in South Florida. To Learn more about the Mother Friendly Hospital Initiative, visit www.motherfriendly.org.
The Birth Survey
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Fight Florida's Ban on VBACs in Birthing Centers!
Join the fight to change the State of Florida's ban on VBACs in birthing centers. Yes, that is right, the state is telling you how to birth your child. The Florida Alliance of Birth Centers has retained an attorney to challenge the legislative rule banning a woman's option to attempt a vaginal birth after c-section. With c-section rates in Florida hospitals easily reaching 70% and 80%, our choices are being limited. PUSH BACK for VBACs!
Would you have paid $100 to have your VBAC?
Currently the State of Florida’s legislative rule governing birth centers is written in a manor which has now been used to ban women from choosing VBACs with any licensed practitioner in a free standing birth center. With cesarean rates in some Florida hospitals easily reaching the 70% mark or more, a woman’s ability to choose the manner in which she births is being taken away.
The CDC has reported a decline of over 67% in VBACs over the last ten years, with no decrease to the maternal or infant mortality rate. It is well documented that newborns delivered by planned or scheduled cesarean are at increased risk of respiratory and other morbidity compared with newborns delivered vaginally or even by emergent cesarean. Mother’s risks of undergoing the major abdominal surgery know as a cesarean section include massive blood loss, clots, infection and DEATH at a significantly higher rate than that of a woman undergoing a normal and natural VBAC. All the while these statistics are swept under the rug by OB-GYN physicians. All for the sake of time management and an elusive malpractice rate reduction which has in fact risen.
The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology has itself issued this statement:
Cesarean delivery is associated with an increased risk of postpartum maternal death. Knowledge of the causes of death associated with this excess risk informs contemporary discussion about cesarean delivery on request and should inform preventive strategies.
– Catherine Deneux-Tharaux, MD,
Yet Physicians continue to practice in a manner that is not consistent with the evidenced based model of care which modern medicine is based on. With over 51% of all humans in Miami-Dade county born via cesarean, and hospitals using fear tactics and out right lies to prevent women from VBAC in hospitals, free standing birth centers remain the only choice for many women. Vaginal births are becoming a thing of the past.
So I ask once again: Would you have paid $100 to have your VBAC?
If your answer is yes, please consider paying it forward and donating to the pushing 4 vbacs initiative. BirthGirlz, a Florida Non profit group , in conjunction with the Human Services Coalition 501 (c) (3), and the Florida Alliance of Birth Centers need your tax deductible donation to help pay for an experienced attorney to petition and litigate the State of Florida. As it currently stands VBACs at home with a licensed midwife are legal, but midwives working in birth centers are not permitted to so much as give prenatal care to these very same mothers. Please help us help the future of normal, natural birth. Please donate today.
More Information
Leah L. Albers, CNM, DrPH, FACNM, FAAN
Grassroots Network Message 905025
Action Alert: Birth Center Bill introduced!
Dear Friends,
Great news! The bill providing for Medicaid reimbursement for birth centers has now been introduced! This is the bill we’ve mentioned in several previous grassroots network messages. Birth centers are owned and operated by both Certified Professional Midwives and by Certified Nurse Midwives, provide high quality cost-effective care, and serve many Medicaid clients. A recent court ruling will eliminate reimbursement even in the states that have been reimbursing through Medicaid, which will result in many birth centers closing. So this bill ties right in with the Obama Administration’ s aims for health care reform: to increase access to care that is high quality and cost-effective, that saves us money, that is prevention-oriented and evidence-based.
Below is a Legislative Alert from the American Association of Birth Centers. AABC can use everyone’s help lining up additional co-sponsors for the bill in the House, and identifying sponsors in the Senate, where the bill has not yet been introduced.
