Among West Virginia’s health worker and facility shortages, the gaps in maternal care are one of the most concerning for families in the state.
Many West Virginians lack places in their communities that offer the care necessary to have babies safely. About half of the state’s counties did not have birthing facilities or maternity care providers, according to a 2023 report from March of the Dimes.
One important thing lawmakers could do to address this crisis is creating a state license for certified professional midwives — midwives who have completed at least two years of education and passed an exam. Although these midwives meet national standards, West Virginia is one of 14 states that does not fully recognize them as health care workers.
A license could allow certified professional midwives to use all the tools in their training to care for parents, require them to keep up with national standards and create a pathway to having their services be reimbursed by health insurances, according to Beth Redden, an Oak Hill certified nurse-midwife and the American College of Nurse Midwives West Virginia Affiliate president.
She said all of these factors would likely encourage more midwives to practice in counties without other maternal health services.
“This is a legislative request that we’ve had for going on 20 years,” Redden said.
This year, she drafted up a bill to create the certification and sent it to House Health and Human Resource Chair Amy Summers, R-Taylor. For about a month, Redden didn’t hear much from Summers.
But in the meantime, Summers sponsored a different bill to regulate birthing centers run by midwives — and the introduced version initially included changes that could have shuttered West Virginia’s only birthing center and made it difficult to open any new ones.
Redden said she and other state health workers met with Summers last week, and the new version of the bill omits the restrictions Redden identified as harmful in the previous version.
But as the midpoint of the session approaches, no delegate or senator has introduced a bill to license certified professional midwives.
On Monday, Summers said she had just put her name on a bill that would do that earlier that morning and expected it to be introduced later this week. She said it took her until February to submit the legislation because she was unfamiliar with what the licensing process entails.
“I don’t like to do things half-heartedly,” Summers said.
But submitting a bill at this point in the session creates challenges. In order for the proposal to have a chance at becoming law, it would need to pass its committee assignments and a House vote by February 28 — something Summers said is unlikely.
“Bills take a couple of years sometimes,” she said. “So at least there will be something in the system to look at and someone can work on it for next year if it doesn’t move this year.”