Stand By Your Midwives! CA Midwives Need You Now!

Despite much-needed changes to California law, not all midwives in CA are free from prosecution.

Yelena Kolodji and Kavita Noble are CA Certified Nurse Midwives (CNMs) who are being prosecuted. Their only alleged offense: failing to obtain physician supervision.

It is virtually impossible for midwives to obtain physician supervision for out-of-hospital births. California Families For Access to Midwives (CFAM) fought hard to remove this unnecessary requirement from law. Thanks to enormous consumer pressure, as of January 1, 2014, physician supervision will be a thing of the past for Licensed Midwives in California —  but not for CNMs.  

While most CNMs practice in hospital settings where physician supervision is virtually automatic, the few CNMs who provide out-of-hospital maternity care are forced to practice illegally since physicians are unwilling and/or unable to supervise them.  

Yelena and Kavita have been providing comprehensive care to pregnant mothers and newborns for more than a combined 40 years, and have caught a combined 2,000 babies in hospital, birth center, and home settings.  

They are currently in jeopardy of losing all of their licenses issued by the Board of Registered Nursing including their licensure as Certified Nurse Midwives, Registered Nurses, and Nurse Practitioners.  The personal and professional implications for these two midwives are obvious. This case also raises the broader question: do mothers have a right to access the full range of maternity care services their providers are trained and skilled to deliver?  

When two skilled, experienced, and appropriately licensed midwives are prosecuted for providing appropriate care that results in a healthy mother and healthy baby, it is a sign that something is wrong with the system.  

The Board of Registered Nursing and the California Department of Justice are well aware that the CNM licensing law is flawed, and they have decided to pursue this case anyway.  California Families for Access to Midwives leadership and other organizations have reached out in the interest of justice, logic, and increased access to care, but our efforts appear to have fallen on deaf ears.  Now it is time for all of us to get involved and support these midwives for providing the care that families need and deserve.

Please get involved in our efforts to support midwives Yelena and Kavita during this trying time by:

• If you are in the South Bay area, please attend our upcoming fundraiser.

• Please consider a donation to CFAM as we support Yelena & Kavita’s defense.

• You can also contribute directly to the midwives' defense fund, Stand By Your Midwife, here.

To purchase tickets or make a donation, please click here. No donation is too small and every dollar makes a difference. The hearing date is right around the corner - starting February 7th - so your support is needed right now.

And please help us spread the word by sharing widely! Share the event on Facebook here. To learn more about the status of the case, follow the Stand By Your Midwives page on Facebook here.

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