In a story on Weekend Edition Sunday on January 6, Monica Ortiz Uribe recounts an effort to reduce the high Mexican maternal mortality rate, especially in poorer, more rural and isolated areas of the country, by training modern professional midwives. Many of these "new" midwives are the daughters and grand-daughters of traditional midwives who have provided care for centuries.

Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, says in the foreword of this important document, "We know what is needed to make pregnancy and delivery safe: access to health services, including skilled birth attendants and a functioning health care facility."

BOSTON, MA, Feb 2, 2012 - Governor Deval Patrick signed a bill that expands the privileges and responsibilities of nurse-midwives. The governor has signed legislation that authorizes nurse-midwives to write drug prescriptions and order tests or therapeutics.

Home Births in the United States, 1990–2009 by Marian F. MacDorman, Ph.D.; T.J. Mathews, M.S.; and Eugene Declercq, Ph.D. The authors found that home birth is on the rise in the US.

A PRACTITIONER PERSPECTIVE by Faith Gibson LM, CPM, in the September 2011 Birth (Volume 38, Issue 3, pages 266–268, September 2011). An excerpt in which Faith Gibson explains why she wrote the article follows.

Published: September 5, 2011 in the New York Times By NICHOLAS BAKALAR According to a new analysis, the United States now ranks 41st in the world in terms of neonatal mortality, the death rate of infants less than one month old. The rate is higher in the United States than in, among others, Cuba, Slovakia, Croatia and all of Western Europe and Scandinavia.

A systematic review to be published in the September/October 2011 issue of Nursing Economic$ reports that care provided by certified nurse-midwives (CNMs) is associated with comparable or better outcomes than care managed exclusively by physicians.

LONDON (Reuters) Jun 20 - More investment in midwifery could save many of the millions of babies and hundreds of thousands of women who still die every year because of a lack of skilled healthcare during childbirth, the United Nations said on Monday.

The Netherlands has a system of pregnancy and birth care that is unique in the Western world. The majority of Dutch midwives work independently from obstetricians, are the sole care providers for low risk women and are primarily responsible for the system of risk selection. Almost 30% of women choose to give birth at home.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Pregnant women who have a cesarean delivery appear to be more likely to suffer a stroke during the following year than women who give birth normally, researchers in Taiwan have shown.