My Daily Domestic Diigolet 02/28/2008

Loving and her team swabbed for bacteria as soon as drinks hit the table at restaurants all around Paterson, New Jersey. “You would think they had dipped the lemons in raw meat,” she said, referring to the high levels of bacteria that she found. The swabs of lemon wedges revealed everything from high counts of fecal bacteria to a couple of dozen other microorganisms — most of which can make you sick.  They found bacteria on the rind and on the flesh of the lemons. Health laws require lemons to be handled with gloves or tongs. But its common practice for waiters and waitresses to simply pop the little lemon wedge onto a drinking glass with their bare hands. If an employee’s hands aren’t clean, however, then touching the lemons is likely to contaminate them with bacteria according to Loving.

“Ohio doesn’t have a revised code that includes midwifery. There is no licensure available in Ohio,” she says. “There is no autonomy for us.”

Ohio law only recognizes nurse midwives, who are registered nurses with a master’s degree in midwifery, according to Stephanie Beck Borden, chair of Ohio Families for Safe Birth.

But CPMs or direct-entry midwives like Helwig, who care for women giving birth in their homes, lack official approval. “Direct-entry midwives are at risk of legal prosecution for practicing medicine,” Beck Borden says. “In Ohio there is no protection, no regulatory body for direct-entry midwives. (They can be) prosecuted for practicing advanced-practice nursing without a license or practicing medicine without a license, which is a felony.”

“It’s insanity,” she says. “I’ve been serving the community for 10 years, on call night and day, and my life has completely stopped. Now I’m sitting and waiting for the state to decide if they’re going to punish me or give me back my stuff and send me on my way.” Beck Borden recently gave birth to her second child at home.

“Direct-entry midwifery is recognized in 22 other states,” she says.

Ohio Families for Safe Birth (OFSB) hopes to soon have Ohio included among those states.