Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Midwives Program Ended at Hospital

More than 100 doctors and midwives protested outside of Georgetown University Hospital last Friday after the hospital decided to lay off its three midwives, arguing that the program increases options available to D.C.’s pregnant women.

The layoff was the result of a series of factors – initiated by the voluntary resignation last year of the program’s chief, according to Karen Alcorn, the Medical Center’s vice president for public affairs.

Economic challenges and skyrocketing medical liability premiums contributed to the program’s end, at a time of general nationwide layoffs as a result of rising insurance rates.

Georgetown’s midwifery program began in the 1980s as a small group whose members served as faculty for nurse-midwife training. An expanded program was reintroduced in 1998 to satisfy growing consumer demand.

In the past few years the practice has become more prevalent nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control Prevention. Midwives in the United States participated in 305,606 births in 2001 – which is twice as many since 1991.

Last year, however, midwifery constituted less than 9 percent of total births at Georgetown – 154 deliveries out of 1,763, according to Alcorn.

Still, Georgetown’s cutback means fewer options for women in the D.C. metropolitan area, according to Siobhan Wilson Green (SFS ’92) who visited the midwives for routine gynecological care as an undergraduate.

“When it came time to decide where to deliver my first child, the choice was obvious – Georgetown Midwives offered me the sort of low intervention, high quality childbirth care I was looking for in a highly acclaimed hospital,” Green said.

With the program’s official termination on June 30, the D.C. area’s only other autonomous, hospital-based nurse-midwife practice will be in Loudoun County, Va.

Despite the layoffs, Georgetown Hospital remains open to private-practice midwives who want to have access to the facilities, Alcorn stressed.

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