Support the MANA Midwives Conference

Guest Contributing Writer Philip Proefrock is more frequently found writing about green building and design issues at our sister blog Green Building Elements. His wife, Stacia Proefrock is a homebirth midwife, doula, and fertility consultant and is a member of the Michigan Midwives Association organizing committee for the MANA conference.

The Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA) annual conference will be held in Traverse City, Michigan later this October. MANA is a professional organization for midwives throughout North America. “MANA’s goal is to unify and strengthen the profession of midwifery, thereby improving the quality of health care for women, babies, and communities.”

You can help support the work of midwives.  MANA is working to push legislation in a number of states where the practice of midwifery and homebirth is not fully legal.  While some states have laws that support and encourage the practice of midwifery, many other states are less supportive.  MANA is also advocating for insurance companies to allow homebirth options as a safe, less-expensive and less resource consuming alternative to standard hospital births.

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MANA promotes the Midwives Model of Care and seeks to develop communication among midwives. The organization supports a woman’s right to choose her provider and place of birth and seeks to promote midwifery as a health care option.

MANA and the Michigan Midwives Association have organized to provide scholarships to midwives from Mexico and Guatemala as well as from remote areas of Canada. This scholarship money will go toward offsetting costs so that those midwives can travel to the 2008 MANA Conference in Traverse City, Michigan. Without this money, most of these midwives would not be able to afford to come to the conference because of prohibitive travel costs. Bringing them to this gathering helps foster an international exchange of ideas and make the MANA conference more inclusive of midwives from a broader geographic area and diverse economic backgrounds.

This weekend, MMA held a pancake breakfast and auction fundraiser to collect money to bring these midwives to the conference.  But they are still short of their goal.  Dontations through PayPal to contribute toward the scholarship fund are being collected, and your contributions would be greatly appreciated.

See also:
More about MANA Positions
Labor of Love: Home Birth is a Choice that the AMA Wants to Outlaw
Midwife articles on Eco Child’s Play
Community articles on Eco Child’s Play

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