The State of Birth in West Virginia

The accompanying map shows the state of birth services in WV. According to the state’s official accounts, there are 28 out of 55 counties in WV that have no obstetric hospital or birthing center. Many of the counties are rural, complicated by mountainous and wilderness geography. Despite the influx of Certified Nurse Midwives (CNMs) into the Mountain State in the early 80’s, these 28 counties still have no official services for pregnant women. Most CNMs work close to population centers in hospitals and clinics, where they can earn livable wages and serve higher volumes of patients.

Direct-Entry Midwives (DEMs) provide home-based prenatal care as well as labor and delivery services to pregnant women in some of the underserved counties. Despite their willingness to travel 2 hours or more from their own homes, DEMs have never been numerous enough to cover the whole state. Because their services are discounted by West Virginia’s health care system, DEM services are not integrated into official accounts of provision of care.

In order to increase the number of midwives providing out-of-hospital services to pregnant women, and to create accredited paths of  training for direct-entry midwives, DEMs around the country created  a new profession, the Certified Professional Midwife (CPM).

At present, 26 states recognize CPMs, but West Virginia is not yet among them. CPMs provide professional midwifery care throughout the pregnancy and birth cycle and are a feasible solution to the lack of birth attendants in rural West Virginia. The CPM training process allows individuals to become CPMs without incurring large educational expenses that would force them to seek employment outside their home counties. Legalizing CPMs in West Virginia would allow local individuals to become midwives and set up autonomous practice in their own underserved counties. 

To see our page about the effort to acquire CPM Lisensure in WV, see our Legislation page.