INDIANAPOLIS | In Indiana, a midwife who helps another woman with a birth at home better keep quiet, unless a big push to bring licensing to the profession succeeds.
Several local women are joining a national campaign to advocate for regulation and licensing of certified professional midwives in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Indiana is one of 28 states that currently does not license midwives to practice home births, unless they are a nurse midwife assisted by a doctor.
About 200 people rallied at the Statehouse on Thursday, working to introduce legislation in Indiana next year.
"We've been working on getting licensing in Indiana for about 14 years," said Cindy Lybolt, of Crown Point, an advocate for home births. "It is legal in Indiana to have a home birth but not legal to have a certified professional midwife attend you."
Pregnancy and childbirth have "become this big medical intervention thing with drugs and procedures," said Robin Joyce, of Hebron. "With home birth, it's just more of a natural experience."
Lybolt said a planned home birth with a midwife means the team has done prenatal care and thoroughly discussed the birth procedure, nutrition and exercise to ensure a safe birth.
"We don't advocate for high-risk women to have a home birth, but 95 percent of women are healthy and don't need specialists," Lybolt said. "Midwives are great at prenatal care, and there's a huge need in Indiana for qualified midwives."
Dr. Alfred Kobak, of The Kobak Women's Health Center in Valparaiso, said that licensing is a way to make sure people in any discipline are knowledgeable and capable according to the required standards.
"The principle of licensing is to ensure competence," Kobak said from his Valparaiso office. "The most important issue here is the safety of the patient. That's always paramount. Licensing would prove they're competent to do what they say they're going to do."
Licensing also would help midwives come out of the shadows, he said.
"They won't have to worry about the police coming to arrest them for practicing medicine without a license," Lybolt said.
