Midwives Save Lives

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is about two of the bravest and most extraordinary people in Hebrew scripture: Shiprah and Puah, two midwives (Exodus 15-22). If you've never read this story, I encourage you to read the whole thing. It is wonderful. It's about two head Egyptian midwives who have been told by the pharaoh to kill all the Hebrew baby boys as they are born. The midwives resist the pharaoh's orders, and more than that, the Hebrew text tells us that they allowed the baby boys to flourish. When approached by the pharaoh regarding their disobedience, they lied and said that the Hebrew women were fierce enough to birth their own babies. 

This story, among many other reasons, led me to the UF Health North Birth Center, where I came under the brave, diligent care of the midwives there. 

The story of Shiprah and Puah is about bravery in the face of seemingly unchallengeable odds. The Hebrew scholar Nahum M. Sarna states that “their defiance of tyranny constitutes history’s first recorded act of civil disobedience in defense of moral imperative.” Midwives, from the start, seem to be accustom to acts of resistance and fighting against the powers that be. 

Per the CDC, Florida's 2017 Infant Mortality Rate was 6.1%, compared to the national average of 5.8%. Also per the CDC, Florida's 2017 Cesarean rate was 37.2%, compared to the national 32.0%. With the high infant and maternal mortality rates in the United States, and even higher in Florida, health care leaders and providers should be looking to subvert the machine of the “birthing business” for safer alternatives. 

This is precisely what the midwives of the UF Health North Birth Center are doing in their care for parents and children, and their commitment to honoring each person’s birth desires. Instead of triaging patients into one of many hospital rooms, and instead of endless paperwork and tests, the midwives work with parents to discover exactly the kind of birth experience they desire. This was my experience at the birth center when I moved to their care in March 2018, at six months pregnant. 

It has been expressed by the decision-makers at UF Health that the main reason for closing the birth center is to provide more options for people giving birth. If this is truly the reason, it only proves how out of touch the decision-makers are from the reality of birth in Jacksonville. The birth center actually provided a unique and important option for people giving birth that is not available in any other facility in Jacksonville. Closing the birth center would provide fewer options, not more.

I imagine the true reason that the birth center is being closed is because the birth center does not buy into “the business of birthing.” The midwives of the practice are committed to resisting the powers that insist that birth is nothing more or less than a cog in the for-profit, dangerous anti-health machine. Instead, the midwives work toward providing the care and comfort that any person would want during an otherwise traumatic or frightening transition in one’s life. The midwives know— and prove— that birth can be an incredibly transformational and even pleasurable experience for parents. 

Like the midwives of Exodus, the midwives at the UF Health North Birth Center are committed to seeing life not only be brought safely into the world, but flourish. The birth center provides an option for people, like me, who want to feel the safety and peace of mind of a hospital without the unnecessary IV drips, rushed care, and unimaginable cost. 

It was not without risk to themselves that the midwives in Exodus carried out their plan to subvert Pharaoh’s orders. I believe that the midwives of the UF Health North Birth Center, and midwives across the United States, have carried out their vocations with similar risk. When up against a tyrannical power as great as the United States healthcare system, it is never without risk to choose care over profit. But choose we must, and it seems UF Health has made its decision clear. 

I could not be more proud of these brave midwives, and grateful for their important role in my child’s own birth story. I hope that, like the midwives of Exodus, their story will be one of triumph over seemingly unchallengeable odds.