Tandem nursing is becoming more common these days. More moms are nursing through pregnancy and continuing to nurse their older nurslings once their new baby is born.
When midwives put on their legislative-policy-changing hats, they often encounter statements that call into question the qualifications and competency of direct-entry midwives. I recently penned a response to patently false information that was being circulated in my home state of Oklahoma, surrounding a new licensing law for CPMs and CMs. I was deeply saddened to see harmful, crowdsourced, misinformation being spread around, and believe we must hold policy makers accountable for securing and reporting accurate information about our scope and credentials.
I apologize for the harm created by my words in the President’s Report, published in the MANA Newsletter on January 19, 2021. It has since been revised. I spoke with the privilege of being white when interacting with people who actively worked to propagate the violence of neo-Nazi ideology based on a belief of white race supremacy and anti-semitism. My words trivialized that evil which resulted in pain to the people who have been most impacted by it. I am grateful for their admonishment and deeply apologize for the injury.
At a key moment when maternal/child health, morbidities, and mortalities are being discussed in national health care arenas, birthing people and midwives are not being included in those discussions.
