The mission of the Midwives Alliance Division of Research is to increase the capacity for, and dissemination of, rigorous research and innovation in maternal-infant health and midwifery care.
We do this by enabling high-impact research and offering credible resources that can be used to evaluate and improve the care that midwives provide.
Our MANA Stats Project facilitates relevant research by collecting data on maternal and infant health outcomes in midwife-assisted births, and provides midwives who contribute data with their own practice statistics.
The DOR also works to increase knowledge about midwifery research and helps midwives become more fluent in conducting research, evaluating studies, and incorporating research findings into their practice.
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The Division of Research is guided by a Coordinating Committee made up of Midwives Alliance members, and advised by a distinguished Advisory Panel of researchers and experts in maternal-infant health, public health, epidemiology, and obstetrics.
What the DOR is working on:
- Planning for annual reporting of benchmarking statistics
- Midwifery Data Collaboration with the American Association of Birth Centers (AABC) and the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM)
- Working with state midwifery organizations who want to use MANAStats data
- Writing/publishing methods papers that help researchers use MANAStats data
- Laying the groundwork for a future national homebirth study
- Helping midwives to become more fluent in understanding research and applying it to their practices
- Reviewing and verifying data submitted by midwives to MANAStats to insure accuracy of our data
Interested in getting involved? Contact us at research@mana.org to find out more.
The DOR’s Vision:
We envision a world where midwives work together to ensure that women, infants, families, and communities achieve optimal health.
- We envision a world where every mother believes in her body’s ability to birth; where pregnancy and birth are viewed as normal and natural life events; where women welcome their pregnancies with a visit to a midwife; and where midwives and doctors work collaboratively as necessary.
- Where all women have access to comprehensive midwifery care, unhindered by cost, fear, or misconceptions about the safety of midwife-attended birth; where midwives are compensated adequately and socially valued for their services; where midwifery care is seen as an unwavering human right and therefore is fully covered by private and state-funded insurance companies.
- Where all babies are born gently and treated as sentient beings; where being born into the hands of midwives becomes the norm within the next generation; where infant and maternal mortality are minimized in all nations, while keeping the cesarean section rate below 15%; and where all mothers enter parenthood with a sense of self-assurance and dignity.
Division of Research Strategic Priorities, 2010 – 2013:
Enable transformative research that supports and improves midwifery care.
- The DOR maintains high-quality data that is unique and describes midwifery care and outcomes of birth that is planned to occur at home and in birth centers.
- The DOR facilitates rigorous scientific research using this data; we do not conduct research on our own database.
Increase the research fluency of midwives.
- The DOR helps midwives to translate research and integrate it appropriately to improve their own practice.
- The DOR helps midwives to see and analyze their own data so that they can continually evaluate and improve their practice.
