How Expanding the Role of Midwives in U.S. Health Care Could Help Address the Maternal Health Crisis

Abstract

Midwives are licensed health care providers who offer a wide range of essential reproductive and sexual health care services, from birth and newborn care to Pap tests and contraceptive care. Research consistently demonstrates that when midwives play a central role in the provision of maternal care, patients are more satisfied, clinical outcomes for parents and infants improve, and costs decrease. Use of midwives is also associated with fewer cesarean sections, lower preterm birth rates, lower episiotomy rates, higher breastfeeding rates, and a greater sense of respect and autonomy for the patient.Given the many benefits of midwives, and the profound maternal care inequities affecting Black and Indigenous families in the U.S., it's important to understand how they could be better integrated into the U.S. health care system. This includes the intentional integration of midwifery across the complex health care ecosystem in order to ensure midwifery care is accessible, affordable, and equitable to all childbearing people