Big Push Campaign
The Big Push For Midwives
From its inception MANA has been a part of and advocate for The Big Push for Midwives Campaign, which represents tens of thousands of people in the United States who support expanding access to Certified Professional Midwives and out-of-hospital maternity care, and increasing birth options for families in North America. Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) provide affordable, quality, community-based care that is proven to reduce costly and preventable interventions as well as the rate of low-birth weight and premature births.
The Big Push envisions a new model of maternity care in America built on expanding access to out-of-hospital maternity care and Certified Professional Midwives. The Big Push asserts that the United States can no longer afford a system that produces inferior results at premium costs and that America needs safer and less-costly maternity care now.
The Mission
The mission of the Big Push for Midwives is to provide strategic planning and message development for state consumer and midwife groups that are actively working on legislation to license Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs), envisioning the day when CPMs are licensed in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Guam.
In each state, the Big Push works with local midwives, consumers and advocates who know their respective districts well to effect change at the organizational, community, and policy-making level by pushing to educate lawmakers about the triple-bottom-line benefits when they choose to pass laws licensing CPMs in every one of these jurisdictions and to incorporate them as maternity care providers at the state and federal level. Citizens and birth-advocacy organizations are working together, with the help of the Big Push for Midwives Campaign, to develop effective messaging operations using locally relevant and appropriate messages, and move regulation and licensure of CPMs forward in new states each year. Through its network of birth activists and professionals, the Big Push for Midwives Campaign meets its PushStates where they are, providing tools and support no matter where they stand along the continuum of organizing their advocacy efforts.
Visit The Big Push website and Locate the Big Push in your state.
