After a 13-month ban that spawned protest rallies, claims of inequity and a 700-plus signature petition, midwives will be allowed to deliver babies again at a Camarillo hospital, possibly by the end of the month, hospital officials said.
A new policy approved by the medical staff allows certified nurse midwives again to deliver babies at St. John's Pleasant Valley Hospital. But the go-ahead on implementing the change will wait until medical staff leaders finish work on dealing with birth complications, said Laurie Eberst, regional CEO for St. John's hospitals in Camarillo and Oxnard.
Once hopeful that midwife deliveries could come by the end of March, Pleasant Valley CEO John Bibby said last week the policy should be implemented by April 30.
The births were stopped in February 2010 because of safety concerns — a claim challenged by midwives and their supporters. Administrators told the two certified nurse midwives who deliver about 60 babies a year at the hospital that the births would be diverted to St. John's Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, about 11 miles away.
Officials said the Oxnard hospital has a neonatal intensive care facility that provides specialized care for babies born prematurely or in high-risk births. The Camarillo hospital has no such unit.
Rumors that the ban was being lifted have bounced through hospital wards and OB-GYN offices for months — long enough that the new reports elicited some skepticism. "I'll believe it when I see it," said Joyce Weckl, a midwife now based in Oxnard, later adding that she does have faith the restrictions will be lifted.
"I do feel like we're getting closer to it being a reality. I know they have been working on it. I think it's certainly a good thing and hopefully it's going to happen very soon."Lynn Olson, a Camarillo midwife, said the change will mean her patients will have more choices.
"I'm very happy about it and I know my patients will be happy because now they have to choose between being delivered at the place they want to be at," she said, referring to Pleasant Valley Hospital, "or being delivered by a midwife. They'll have the best of both worlds."
Eberst said last week the policy allows only low-risk births at the Camarillo hospital — a rule that will be followed not only by midwives but also by obstetrician-gynecologists. Any births that don't meet the standard will be sent to St. John's in Oxnard.
The changes won't be implemented until medical staff leaders finish preparations for situations in which deliveries start as routine but complications turn them into high-risk, Eberst said. "We anticipate the midwife program ... will be reinstated in early spring," hospital officials said in a statement late Wednesday.
Certified nurse midwives say they only deliver low-risk births. They challenged reasons for the ban the moment it was announced, citing research that suggests midwife births are at least as safe as the wider range of births performed by obstetrician-gynecologists.
"If those are the reasons for not allowing us to deliver there, they should have disallowed the physicians, as well," Olson said. Administrators say the restrictions were triggered by high-risk births involving midwives. "There were some cases that were delivered at St. John's Pleasant Valley that did not go as well," Eberst said. "We wanted to make sure this didn't happen again."
Olson said those high-risk births didn't involve certified nurse midwives, who only perform hospital births. They were home-birth cases brought by a supervising physician to Pleasant Valley Hospital after complications arose.
The only doctor in the recent past who brought home midwife births to Pleasant Valley, however, no longer delivers babies at the hospital, said Kimberly Rivers, a leader of the Birth Action Coalition, which led protests against the ban. The rallies attracted midwives, Pleasant Valley nurses, pregnant women, even toddlers holding picket signs.
Several calls to pediatricians and obstetrician-gynecologists on staff at the Camarillo hospital were not returned. One pediatrician said he hadn't seen the new policies. Another doctor, speaking anonymously, said on-call pediatricians were worried about being called to an emergency at a facility without a neonatal intensive care unit. "If I was a mother, I would want to deliver in a place where there is help for my baby if I need it," the doctor said.
Emphasizing they value midwives, hospital leaders said they have focused on making sure resources are available to stabilize and transfer any patients at the Camarillo hospital who need specialized care.
Rivers worries the new protocols may include precautions for midwife births that aren't used for obstetrician-gynecologists, including an emergency team that would be on hand in case complications develop. "It seems to us they are targeting midwives," Rivers said.
Anna Ashton, 25, of Simi Valley was hoping the restrictions would be lifted three months ago. Pregnant with her second child, she had plans to give birth with Weckl's help in Camarillo. Instead, she and her husband had to make the panicked, nearly hourlong drive to St. John's in Oxnard twice, the first time in a false alarm, before Caelum Ashton was born Jan. 9. "It's pretty frustrating," she said of the restrictions. "I'm really hoping this can be resolved (before) I'm pregnant again."