Keep Capitol Hill Kaiser Midwifery Active & Thriving!

The demand for midwifery care is increasing, and the Capitol Hill Midwifery Clinic has been a community resource since 1990, making it the oldest hospital-based program in Seattle. Despite this, Kaiser Permanente Washington has announced an end to the Capitol Hill Seattle Midwifery clinic as we know it. As of January 2025, executives of Kaiser Permanente Washington will no longer allow their midwives to deliver babies at Swedish First Hill. They are reducing the midwifery practice down to 2 providers and ending their 30-year legacy of delivering babies in Seattle. Clinical staff, including the OB/GYN doctors, were not consulted and patient input was not sought out.

This decision effectively ends prenatal midwifery care at Kaiser in Seattle. It limits patient birthing choice and decreases access to women’s and birthing people’s healthcare. Kaiser patients are no longer offered the option of seeing a Kaiser midwife in Seattle and are limited to a family medicine doctor. If they want a Kaiser midwife, they can travel to Bellevue or Tacoma to see one. Or they can choose a midwife at one of NeighborCare’s community clinics, though there is concern that doing so with decrease NeighborCare's service to uninsured, immigrant & refugee patients.

Access to midwifery can have numerous benefits, including reduction in cesarean sections for low-risk pregnancies, shortened labor time, lower utilization of pain medication during birth, and lower rates of postpartum anxiety and depression. (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid services Transforming Maternal Health Model which seeks to improve maternal health outcomes nationwide by increasing access to midwives)

We demand access to full spectrum midwifery care and birth choice in the city of Seattle. We want continued and increased access to midwifery care in an ever-growing city. We want the skilled and experienced midwifery practice of the Kaiser Capitol Hill clinic to be preserved.  We know midwifery has the best birth outcomes and is the most affordable birthing care for low-risk pregnancies. Instead of cutting patient care we ask the decision makers at KPWA to look at cost savings by reducing the salaries of the highest paid executives. We call on Kaiser Permanente to do the right thing and maintain the Kaiser Capitol Hill Midwifery practice, including labor and delivery, in the city of Seattle.