New ROOTS, Beyond Medicalization: Midwives and Maternity Care in America (Jewish Healthcare Foundation)

By Alyce Palko, April 30, 2020, Jewish Healthcare Foundation. 

Introducing the Jewish Healthcare Foundation's new ROOTS publication, Beyond Medicalization: Midwives and Maternity Care in America. 
Under the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is rapidly moving into a new era of healthcare delivery. Across the country, maternal healthcare policies are changing daily in order to ensure birthing families have access to safe care. Hospitals are making rapid decisions about whether birthing in the hospital is the right decision for healthy families during a pandemic. They are building auxiliary units and calling on birth centers and midwives to help them create alternative safe spaces.
We use this time of uncertainty and disruption to consider what, under ideal conditions and normal circumstances, represents the safest, most satisfying and natural environment for women to give birth. We try to answer the ultimate question: if women were to design the perfect childbirth experience, for themselves and their partners and infant, from preconception to successful family bonding, would it look like what we have today? If we cannot say "yes", then let's begin the conversation. And, the timing is right.
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