Greetings!
Yesterday's inauguration theme was "A New Birth of Freedom". The Big Push for Midwives are asking all of you to take a few minutes to send an email with the subject heading "A New Birth of Freedom" to our new president today. Click on the URL below and send a very simple but powerful message to the Obama administration:

"Please be sure to include Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs), who specialize in providing out-of-hospital maternity care, in federal healthcare reform."

http://change.gov/pag...
Our goal is to submit 5,000 emails by midnight today. That number will put us ahead of every other grassroots movement that has submitted comments to the Obama administration and will ensure that our issue – expanding access to out-of-hospital births attended by CPMs – gets the attention it deserves.

Please send a quick email notification to The Big Push for Midwives Facebook wall after you post your comment so we can keep a running tally.

Keep in mind that we are at a crossroads. Healthcare reform is now inevitable and will be based on the reimbursement categories and rates for Medicaid and federal employees. Private insurers are widely expected to follow suit. So if CPMs are not included as recognized providers in federal healthcare reform, there is a very real possibility that home birth families will not be able to receive insurance reimbursement, regardless of whether they have private or public healthcare insurance.

Please act now.
Thank you very, very much.

Envisioning a safer, less-costly model of maternity care in the U.S.