Jan Tritten, Editor of Midwifery Today, crowd sourced a life or death decision on Facebook, and a baby died.

American homebirth midwives are the only healthcare providers who have literally no safety standards and, therefore, no accountability. Recent publications, including statistics from the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA), the organization that represents homebirth midwives, reveal that homebirth increases the risk of death of the baby by 450% of more. High risk homebirths (breech, VBAC, twins) have even higher death rates.

Despite these hideous death rates, no homebirth midwifery organization or executive has made any recommendations to improve safety. Indeed, homebirth advocates in both Arizona and Hawaii are currently arguing to enlarge scope of practice to include the EXACT SAME high risk conditions that homebirth midwives have demonstrated in their own paper to be utterly unsafe at homebirth.

It is time for the leaders of American homebirth midwifery, including Jan Tritten in her role as Editor of Midwifery Today, to acknowledge the death toll of homebirth, to investigate why these deaths are occuring and to hold the midwives involved to account.