Parents who want to have home delivery are one step closer to seeing that as a reality...not home delivery of the newspaper or milk, but of their babies.

The Illinois Senate voted 51-7 last month to legally recognize and license certified professional midwives.

It also approved, 35-21, the creation of 10 "birthing centers" that would be something of a compromise between hospitals and homes. Under a pilot program, the centers would be staffed by nurse-midwives and would not have the full medical resources of a hospital.

As it stands, only doctors and nurses can legally deliver a baby, and only a handful of them work outside a hospital setting.

Shelbyville resident, Cecelia Hicks is in favor of the passage of the bill and spoke about her two home births while she was living in California. “I had a midwife for my first two children. The first midwife was great with the pre-natal counseling and care but unfortunately she got stuck in traffic and I had the baby at home with just me and her father. She arrived five minutes later and made sure everything was going well. Even without her being there, it was a wonderful experience for me.

“For my second child, the midwife was there through the whole process. It is not intrusive and there is quite a bit of fulfillment that you get from having that experience. It was very personal. I would do it all over again.”

Dorothy Kuhns of Arthur, IL, spent 13 years in Belize as a Mennonite Missionary midwife, from 1973-1986. She also feels the legalization of certified midwives is a step in the right direction.

“I think it is a good thing to protect the public from unqualified practitioners and provide a great alternative for people who want to have children in the comfort of their own home and in a familiar setting. Women are more likely to feel secure and relaxed and that is conducive to an easier delivery. Also, infection rates are lower since they are immune to their surroundings.”

Kuhns said when she and her assistant arrived in Belize, they fully expected to deliver babies in a sterile environment. I lost track of how many babies we delivered. It was in the hundreds, and we didn’t lose a single baby in childbirth. We had one die from meningitis as a child.”

Kuhns said the villagers were way ahead of them on childbirth. We went with the idea of delivering into sterile surroundings and found that was not the case. It is amazing. You would think that in dirt floor houses, sanitation would be terrible. But as it turned out, infections were very low.”

Kuhns said she and her assistant were able to introduce some ‘modern’ technologies in the birthing process. “Instead of a machete to cut the umbilical cord, we used razor blades. Instead of bush vines to tie off the cord, we used sterilized shoe strings. We just tried to improve upon their technique. I felt they were way ahead of us on labor and delivery. They already knew how to relax, how to breathe, and how to push.”

Kuhns added, “We were in charge of 13 villages. I was an LPN and in Belize I took training to become a rural health nurse and midwife. We had a concrete block clinic downstairs and we slept upstairs. When we were back in the jungles, we gave the mothers pre-natal care. We found good pre-natal care was most important since their tradition was for the husband to deliver the babies. So we gave the pre-natal and post-partum care and they did very well.”

Hicks also made note of the cost of home delivery versus hospital. “The cost of my first child was $1,000 for all pre-natal care and the second was $750.00. You pay everything up front. My third child was born in a hospital and fortunately I had insurance. It was $10,000, but there were some complications also included in that cost.”

The Midwifery Licensure Act (SB 385) passed a milestone last month when an overwhelming vote moved the bill to the Senate floor to go before the Illinois Senate Licensed Activities Committee. The bill is designed to grant a practicing license in Illinois to birth midwives who hold certification as nationally Certified Professional Midwives.

Certified professional midwives are people who aren't nurses but have been accredited by a national midwives organization.

Because of the law in Illinois currently being in a gray area, many midwives are either not practicing, or do so secretly for fear of legal action.

Hicks added, “This is something that has been done for many, many years in many cultures and I feel that something so natural shouldn’t be treated as criminal. We are not that far removed from our recent American history.”

But Kuhns is quick to say that midwives are best suited to low-risk pregnancies. “We do not advocate talking risks. I think hospitals and doctors have their place. I am talking about low-risk mothers. There are times when hospitalization is required and we do not devaluate that option. We are talking about the low-risk mothers who choose to do this.”

According to Illinois Society for Advanced Practice Nursing, “This issue has been introduced for years and it is the first time it got any further than a committee hearing.”