There is a VERY serious midwife policy problem in the US...

A discussion of midwifery regulation in the United States, focused on the case of midwife Karen Carr, who was convicted over deadly errors and continued to practice after moving to another state. The video argues that a patchwork of state laws makes it hard to keep unsafe midwives out of practice. It also sets out the speaker's support for regulated midwifery-led care for low-risk pregnancies, drawing on experience in New Zealand. The content includes a trigger warning for discussion of infant loss.

• Types of midwives and midwifery-led care for low-risk pregnancies
• Karen Carr's career and legal troubles
• How state-by-state laws affect midwife oversight in the US
• Home birth in the United States and the case of an infant loss

Trigger warning: discussion of infant loss. Let me be very clear: I am in favor of midwifery-led care for all low-risk pregnancies with proper regulations and standards. That’s how most of the rest of the world outside of the United States does it, including where I currently work in New Zealand. The midwives here are highly skilled, highly trained, able to attend home births and hospital births, have better outcomes overall than in the US, and more - the benefits of midwifery-led care cannot be overstated. But the way the laws work in the United States right now - which is to say, hardly working at all - is so incredibly dangerous. A patchwork of laws that change from state to state allow dangerous midwives like Karen Carr - the subject of today’s video - to continue to practice even after being convicted of serious, deadly errors. They just have to move one state over. There are so many reasons for why the system in the US is the way it is, and the medical system carries a lot of the blame. But we have to talk about this problem so that families who may want to seek midwifery care for one reason or another can at least know everything about the midwives they hire. Watch next: We need to talk about midwives: https://youtu.be/ASKngvPH9Ew?si=WEcjYBaBca6Q6FYj Why you can’t eat in labor will SHOCK you: https://youtu.be/coVCp2xqspQ?si=wnliChUm5KtsgwRA Homebirth vs. Hospital birth: https://youtu.be/5XF0XkISTwg?si=UDBHWYUrYFb-dLRm 00:00 Intro 1:00 Types of Midwives 3:23 Karen Carr's Career, Legal Troubles 6:27 Homebirth in the US 8:09 More Legal Troubles 14:38 Loss of Baby Sophie DiVincenzo 20:54 Trial 26:02 Dangerous Laws References: Washington Post article from 2023: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2023/home-birth-midwife-karen-carr/ Washington Post article from 2011: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/midwife-karen-carr-convicted-in-alexandria-babys-death-is-under-investigation-in-md/2011/05/11/AFlrp22G_story.html ABC News article from 2011: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/midwife-karen-carr-pleads-guilty-felonies-babys-death/story?id=13583237 Center for Disease Control 2021 home birth statistics: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr71/nvsr71-08.pdf Congressional report on midwifery care in the US: https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-105861.pdf Research on homebirth transfers to hospitals: https://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2393-14-179 American College of Nurse-Midwives comparison of midwife types: https://www.midwife.org/acnm/files/cclibraryfiles/filename/000000008490/20220418_CNM-CM-CPM%20Comparison%20Chart_FINAL.pdf Become a channel Membryo to connect & access perks! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrPhcbDwqWRc-3tteE2BS6g/join MDJ Secret Second Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAkrMPc856DvoxX99IyGYmw I stream on Twitch weekly (usually Sundays): https://www.twitch.tv/mamadoctorjones - Playlist of full-length Twitch streams for channel membryos: https://www.youtub