With the UK’s birth rate set to increase by as much as 12.5 per cent each year for the next few years, the demand for midwives will be constant. The problem? There is a serious shortage of qualified professionals to meet this demand. As the majority of current midwives are fast-approaching retirement age, the Royal College of Midwifery is facing a shortfall of more than 10,000. Typically, midwives can expect to earn £25,586 (ONS).
http://lifeaftersmsaforkbians.blogspot.com/2009/03/10-growing-jobsdespite-economy.html
Anita, a midwife friend of mine, and I have been going around our city of just over 100,000 people distributing flyers for her birth center and homebirth practice and Midwifery Today’s Eugene conference programs. We take our flyers with pins and tape and tack them on bulletin boards in health food stores, community services agencies, the public library and many other places.
This has been a terrific outreach for both of us. We’ve learned a lot about our community’s resources while carrying out marketing efforts. It has been so fruitful and fun that I recommend that midwives and doulas do a similar outreach in their communities. One of the best parts is that while we’re driving around we are talking, ranting and otherwise solving all of the problems in birth today. The other delight is the amazing people we’ve met who are part of our community.
http://community.midwiferytoday.com/blogs/jan/archive/2009/03/01/back-door-birth-activism-let-your-community-know-about-midwifery.aspx
The Midwifery Business Network is an organization composed of Certified Nurse-Midwives (CNMs) and Certified Midwives (CMs) from nurse-midwifery practices across the United States, and who are active members of the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM). The group meets semi-annually in the spring and fall in order to network, share information and provide support to other members. Practices represented are both large and small, rural and urban, public and private.
http://www.midwiferybusinessnetwork.com/
The closure of a well-known Takoma Park midwifery practice and a Bethesda birth center have sparked an outcry. Those protesting this are some Washington area women who say they are worried by the dwindling number of opportunities to give birth outside a hospital or with a midwife’s help. At least seven other birth centers and midwifery practices, many citing rising malpractice insurance premiums and lagging insurance company reimbursements, have folded in the Washington-Baltimore area over the past decade.
http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Natural-Birth-Centers–In-U-S–Pulling-Down-The-Shutters-21654-1/