Thank you for your continued interest and concern for the status of birth centers in utah.  We are happy to report that we have two lawyers researching laws in other states regarding transfer plans vs. transfer agreements, which was a huge sticking point for the utah Medical Association (UMA) and the Utah Hospital Association (UHA).  (Having a transfer plan in place means that a hospital is not required to sign, but by the federal IMTALA law, still must accept a transfer client.  A transfer agreement requires the hospital’s approval, and is much more difficult to obtain since the hospitals in Utah do not want out-of-hospital birthing facilities as competition.)  Continue reading…

Thank you so much for all your support at our health department meeting.  It would be so hard to continue with the fight without knowing how much support that you give us.  I want all of you to visit the articles at ksl.com  

• http://www.ksl.com//index.php?nid=481&sid=5960679  

and sltrib.com  

• http://www.sltrib.com/ci_11995030  

to read and make comments - remember as you make comments you let the news media know that you are interested and want this story to be followed!  

• The meeting did not pass the changes that we desired - that is to change the requirement that the birth center currently has to have a written and signed contract by a local hospital to take all transfers (the transfers are going to be taken anyway by federal law and the hospitals are notorious for not signing and thus keeping a birth center from opening) and replace that requirement with a health department plan for transfer.  And to change the allowable practitioners in the birth center to include Licensed direct entry Midwives.  
• However, the Utah Hospital Association did not get their changes passed either, which would have closed the birth center for good.  YEA!  
• Our next steps will be done quickly while we have great momentum behind us.  We are contacting legal support to research transfer plans in other states that have similar “tort” laws (which keep people from suing doctors and hospitals for things that might have occurred while in a birth center) so that we can calm the fears of the committee about hospital and doctor’s liability with transfers.  We are hoping to complete this research and write a new proposal fast.  
• Please keep logging in for news and ways that you can help.  We are also working on starting a not-for-profit organization to support birth choices in Utah.  As we get this going we hope that all of you will join! 

The meeting has been confirmed for this Wednesday, March 25th at 9:00 a.m.  The Cannon Building is located at 288 N. 1460 W. in Salt Lake City.  Meeting will be in Room 101.  Please bring your families and support choices in childbirth!

Hi Everyone,Thank you for your support of midwives and birth centers.  We had a great Info Meeting on Wednesday, March 11th here at the center.  A lot of interest and enthusiasm was shown for starting a non-profit organization that would support many different types of choices in childbirth here in Utah.  Watch this space for more info coming on that. Thanks to Xochitl Owens for starting the Facebook group “Friends of SLC’s Birth and Family Place!”  Check it out by searching for it using that name, and be a joiner (www.facebook.com if you’re not already among the millions…)! Regarding the Health Facilities  Committee meeting scheduled for March 25th:  we have been informed that the meeting MAY NOT take place!  We have been instructed to call 5 days before the meeting about whether or not there will be a meeting at all! Please check in here for the latest updates on this very frustrating process.Thanks to you all again for your loyalty and passion when it comes to choices in childbearing for women and their families. Becky & Staff   

The new time that has been scheduled for the meeting at the Department of Health for discussion about changing the birth center regulations is March 25^th at 9am.  The meeting will be at the Health Department Cannon Building, 288 N. 1460 W.  We are still asking for all those that would like to see birth centers continue to be able to offer their services in the State of Utah to please plan to attend.  We will have another informational meeting on March 11^th here at the birth center, please attend if you would like to know more about what is happening with regulations for birth centers in Utah.  Thank you to all of you who are involved and willing to help the birth center cause.  The Feb 11^th meeting here at the birth center was informational and the discussion that was held is summarized as follows: 

The Birth Center laws are not in question – the Utah law is good and very general, but as for most laws, the upholding of those laws relies upon more detailed rules and regulations.  In this case these rules and regulations are written by a Department of Health committee, the Health Facilities Committee.  The members of these committees are volunteers and are appointed to their positions.  These members are generally uninformed about birth centers and have a generalized fear of birth – remember we only have 2 licensed birth centers in the State.  The committee spends most of their time setting regulations for nursing homes, care centers, and surgical centers – a much different type of facility. 

We here at the Birth Center and the owner of BellaNatal (the unlicensed birth facility in Orem) went to the committee ourselves to open the rules for revision.  The rules/regulations were written 20 years ago and were taken from existing regulations at the time – therefore not the best for birth center operation.  We wanted to update them and to make them current with current law.  When we opened them to inspection, about 8 months ago, the opposition came out in full force and the Utah Hospital Association wrote a proposal of their own that, if it were to become regulation, would close the existing birth center and make it impossible to open any more centers in the state.  You can scroll near to the end of this blog to find the links to the Utah Hospital Association’s proposal and the Birth Center Representative’s proposal.  

The Sub-Committee meetings degenerated to an argument on three points (ignoring all the “clean up” that we wished to do).  These points are:

1. The current regulations specify that birth centers must have a hospital sign a transfer agreement to accept all clients that transfer from the birth center.  The problem with this is that hospitals are our direct competition and we must ask their “permission” to open a facility that will compete with them.  There are several locations in Utah that have practitioners that would like to open licensed birth centers and cannot because there is not a local hospital that will sign this agreement.  Interestingly enough, hospitals are required to take all transfers whether or not there is an agreement.  We feel that this is not required for safety nor is it right to require it. Our research on operating birth centers in the United States found that the vast majority of these centers did not have a transfer agreement (not required), but the safety statistics are excellent.
2. Licensed Direct Entry Midwives have had their license to practice in “any out-of-hospital setting” for about 3 years in the State of Utah.  They are, however, expressly forbidden to practice in licensed birth centers by birth center regulation. We feel that it is necessary to update the current regulations to include all licensed birth care practitioners.  Law must be followed in writing regulations.
3. Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC), is forbidden in birth centers.  They are allowed at home births however.  This does not make sense and we wished to change it.  

The owner of BellaNatal has expressed that she is very concerned that continuing to push for these changes will likely end in more restrictive birth center laws and would like to end the push for change (if this is possible).  If the rules become more restrictive the Birth and Family Place would likely close within a year.  We here at the birth center disagree with the suggestion to end the debate and “go back to where we were” and would like to make a stand for change.  We must state that she has much more political experience dealing with the legislature and with committees, so we must take her precautions seriously.  However we would like to hear your comments on this important issue.  You can call or, even better, come to our informational meeting on March 11^th here at the birth center to share your comments.  

Scroll down the page for more information and links to support documents.

The Health Department has rescheduled the meeting originally set for Wednesday, February 18th, to Wednesday, March 25th, at 9:00 a.m.  

HOWEVER!  We are still getting together for an information meeting this Wednesday, February, 11th from 6 - 8 p.m. here at the birth center.  Please join us to learn why the Health Department is having meetings about us in the first place, and what we as a community can do.

We will be having an informational meeting at the Birth Center on February 11th from 6 - 8 p.m.   We will be discussing the Health Department regulation of the Birth Center, what is being done, what we want to be done and how you can help.  Please read the post below and the attached files for information.  Call 801-278-3102 with any questions.

After more than 9 months and many meetings, the Health Facilities Licensing Subcommittee has submitted their recommendations to the full committee regarding birth center licensing.  We need your support!

YOUR physical presence is needed at this meeting!

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

9:00 a.m.

Utah Department of Health

Cannon Building ~ 288 N. 1460 W.

Salt Lake City

 There are going to be MANY people attending that would like to see birth centers close — the Utah Hospital Association, Utah Nurses Association, and the Utah Medical Association.  We need to show the licensing committee that many people want to see birth centers thrive in Utah.  Numbers of support people is critical, you do not have to speak, but if you are asked to, we would hope your message would be, simply, that this option should remain open for the women in Utah.

We have many statistics to support our recommendations, the UHA, UNA, UMA use anecdotal horror stories to support their claim with no statistics to back them up.  We need you to state, with your voice or just your presence, that birth centers should be made available to more women in Utah, not fewer!

To read more:

 (PDF) Report from the Birth Center Representatives outlining proposed changes

 (PDF) Utah Hospital Association’s proposed rule changes

(PDF) Birth Center Representatives proposal for rule changes

(PDF) Report on the state of birthing in the United States

(PDF) health-facilities-committee-sub-report

(PDF) Literature review on safety of Birth Centers

 (PDF) APHA access to midwifery care document

(PDF) AABC Birth Center Standards

 (PDF) APHA Guidelines

Birth in our society has become a political hot topic.

http://www.thebusinessofbeingborn.com/ There are people that believe that you should not have alternate choices in childbirth, and many that would legislate where and with whom you can give birth. We believe that you should be able to make your own health care choices, wither we agree with those choices or not. If you have strong beliefs about birth choices then we would like you to make your voice heard. On this page we will try to keep you informed of current events where your voice will make a difference.

In the State of Utah we just had a Direct Entry Midwifery bill pass the legislature.

(http://le.utah.gov/~2008/htmdoc/sbillhtm/sb0093s07.htm) and we hope that midwives will seek for licensure. In this bill LDEM’s are licensed to give care to women that have had a former Caesarean Section. We want to make sure that Utah laws are equal for all out of hospital options. This involves changing birthing center rules to allow VBAC’s, LDEM’s, and changing building codes to make building a birth center financially feasible. We will inform you if you can assist us in the endeavor. We hope to have some progress on this by June of this year.

Click here to read the subcommittee report as a Microsoft word document.

Click here to read the repord as a pdf.

To see midwifery progress on the national level go to: http://thebigpushformidwives.org To know how to contact your legislators go to: http://www.votesmart.org