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Advocacy for midwives, homebirths, and families in Iowa
Friday, July 9, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Submit your birth story!
Did you have a midwife-attended home birth in Iowa? Want to share your story? Please send your birth stories, along with photos, to be featured on our blog! Send birth stories to: beautifulbirth@yahoo.com.
Friday, February 12, 2010
write your reps NOW!
The deadline to get our bill to the floor is MARCH 5th.
We need you to contact you reps NOW and ask for them to support midwives. Even if you haven't or wouldn't have a homebirth, if you believe the option should be legally available, say so!!!
These reps especially need to hear from you:
Fairfield/Jeff Co.- Rep Curt Hanson needs to hear from you
Knoxville/Marion Co-Rep VanEnglenhoven
Ottumwa/Wapello -Rep Mary Gaskill
Washington-Rep Larry Marek
Sigourney/Ollie/Keokuk Co- Rep Betty DeBoef
Osky- Rep Eric Palmer
There are a bunch of regional letter writing parties happening in the next 2 weeks.
Letter Writing Tips
If your rep is a supporter, write to thank them and ask for their advocacy with their peers!
We need you to contact you reps NOW and ask for them to support midwives. Even if you haven't or wouldn't have a homebirth, if you believe the option should be legally available, say so!!!
These reps especially need to hear from you:
Fairfield/Jeff Co.- Rep Curt Hanson needs to hear from you
Knoxville/Marion Co-Rep VanEnglenhoven
Ottumwa/Wapello -Rep Mary Gaskill
Washington-Rep Larry Marek
Sigourney/Ollie/Keokuk Co- Rep Betty DeBoef
Osky- Rep Eric Palmer
There are a bunch of regional letter writing parties happening in the next 2 weeks.
Letter Writing Tips
If your rep is a supporter, write to thank them and ask for their advocacy with their peers!
Thursday, February 11, 2010
HF 781 PASSES OUT OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE!!
Hi all,
Great news on the midwifery bill: We passed out of committee in the House!
This is a tremendous success, especially considering the shortened session and the state's current budget concerns. The fact that they even heard our bill is a big deal. We survived funnel week, and we are still in the game this session! This is farther than a midwifery bill has ever gotten in Iowa.
It's also true that we have a lot of work ahead of us. We will really need your help during the rest of this month and next month as we work toward votes on the house and senate floor. Please stay tuned for updates on how to stay involved!
Today's victory wouldn't have been possible without the help of Ida Darragh, CPM, who came to Iowa from Arkansas to educate our lawmakers about CPM education and help us lobby this week. She was absolutely instrumental to our progress. We are still needing financial contributions toward covering Ida's travel expenses - If you can make even a small donation to FOIM today, it would be a big help.
http://www.friendso fiowamidwives. org
Special thanks also go out to:
Megan Day-Suhr, who is consistently present at the Capitol, and is fearless and persistent when it comes to talking to lawmakers about midwives;
Eric Goranson, our lobbyist-consultant ;
Mary Mascher, our bill sponsor;
Everyone who came out to lobby day, baked cookies, wrote legislators, and sent calendars;
And all the wonderful midwives of Iowa who serve our families so lovingly and bravely.
It's such a great pleasure to be doing this good work with you all!
~Monica
Steering Committee
Great news on the midwifery bill: We passed out of committee in the House!
This is a tremendous success, especially considering the shortened session and the state's current budget concerns. The fact that they even heard our bill is a big deal. We survived funnel week, and we are still in the game this session! This is farther than a midwifery bill has ever gotten in Iowa.
It's also true that we have a lot of work ahead of us. We will really need your help during the rest of this month and next month as we work toward votes on the house and senate floor. Please stay tuned for updates on how to stay involved!
Today's victory wouldn't have been possible without the help of Ida Darragh, CPM, who came to Iowa from Arkansas to educate our lawmakers about CPM education and help us lobby this week. She was absolutely instrumental to our progress. We are still needing financial contributions toward covering Ida's travel expenses - If you can make even a small donation to FOIM today, it would be a big help.
http://www.friendso fiowamidwives. org
Special thanks also go out to:
Megan Day-Suhr, who is consistently present at the Capitol, and is fearless and persistent when it comes to talking to lawmakers about midwives;
Eric Goranson, our lobbyist-consultant ;
Mary Mascher, our bill sponsor;
Everyone who came out to lobby day, baked cookies, wrote legislators, and sent calendars;
And all the wonderful midwives of Iowa who serve our families so lovingly and bravely.
It's such a great pleasure to be doing this good work with you all!
~Monica
Steering Committee
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
progress!!
We have great things happening in Iowa! First, we are excited that we have bills in both the House and Senate this year, and our House bill has half a dozen co-sponsors. The leap in support for our cause this year is incredible! We were disappointed when our House bill was assigned the the HR committee last week, which has a few members who are extremely opposed to our cause. However, our brilliant sponsor, Mary Mascher, made a genius move yesterday: she resurrected our bill from last year, which had been assigned to the State Gov't committee, and added the new bill as an amendment to it.
This bill passed through subcom yesterday and goes to full committee today at 4. We don't know what will happen, but State Gov't is a much friendlier place for our bill to be than HR would have been, so we are optimistic!! It's been a blessing that Ida Darragh joined us this week, and got to speak to the committee yesterday to educate legislators. All in all, it's been an amazing week for midwifery! We have members at the capitol today to lobby the SG committee, and Ida will be there as well.
Hooray!
This bill passed through subcom yesterday and goes to full committee today at 4. We don't know what will happen, but State Gov't is a much friendlier place for our bill to be than HR would have been, so we are optimistic!! It's been a blessing that Ida Darragh joined us this week, and got to speak to the committee yesterday to educate legislators. All in all, it's been an amazing week for midwifery! We have members at the capitol today to lobby the SG committee, and Ida will be there as well.
Hooray!
Friday, November 20, 2009
FOIM 2010 Calendar - Photos Needed!
We're very excited about a new calendar project we are starting for 2010 and we need your help. We need photos of Iowa home birth families! If you would like your homeborn Iowa baby and/or your beautiful family included as one of our calendar images, please send us your photo(s) in a digital attachment to: foimcalendar@yahoo.com by MONDAY, NOV. 23rd.
Once we've made selections we will be in touch with those families to gather further info, obtain permissions and finalize the calendar design.
It is our goal to have the calendars available for the new year, so the sooner you submit, the sooner our beautiful calendar of Iowa homebirth families will be available!
Any questions you have about the calendar can be directed to the foimcalendar@yahoo.com email. Please forward to anyone you think may be interested in participating.
Thanks!
Once we've made selections we will be in touch with those families to gather further info, obtain permissions and finalize the calendar design.
It is our goal to have the calendars available for the new year, so the sooner you submit, the sooner our beautiful calendar of Iowa homebirth families will be available!
Any questions you have about the calendar can be directed to the foimcalendar@yahoo.com email. Please forward to anyone you think may be interested in participating.
Thanks!
Monday, September 14, 2009
How You Can Help Foim, #4
In honor of fall, and going back to school - I'd like to ask you to help FOIM today by becoming more educated, yourself, about the positive benefits of homebirth attended by a midwife. We can say it again and again, that birth is normal, and that a healthy pregnancy and birth can easily happen at home -- but it helps to know your facts! Here are some documents that you should check out this week, as a way to help FOIM legalize and regulate midwifery practice in our state:
1. The Milbank Report -- this one is long, but good
3. Our FOIM Factsheets on the Yahoo page!
Happy Studying!
-Renee
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