It’s been a long time since I have posted here. Almost two years, in fact. Now that we are finding ourselves amidst sheltering-in in NYC, I am meeting my doula clients virtually for all meetings and appointments… which means my commutes have been cut out and I have a few extra minutes here and there to maybe start posting on this blog again!
Let’s start with this. It’s a good 30-minute read, and well worth your time! An excerpt of the beginning is posted below, and you can follow the link to finish reading the article and get yourself educated on the midwife situation, particularly in New York State.
The Criminalization of the American Midwife, by Jennifer Block.
Published March 10, 2020 on www.longreads.com
Elizabeth Catlin had just stepped out of the shower when she heard banging on the door. It was around 10 a.m. on a chilly November Wednesday in Penn Yan, New York, about an hour southeast of Rochester. She asked her youngest child, Keziah, age 9, to answer while she threw on jeans and a sweatshirt. “There’s a man at the door,” Keziah told her mom.
“He said, ‘I’d like to question you,” Caitlin tells me. A woman also stood near the steps leading up to her front door; neither were in uniform. “I said, ‘About what?’” The man flashed a badge, but she wasn’t sure who he was. “He said, ‘About you pretending to be a midwife.’”
Continue reading here.