Purpose of the Symposium
1) Discuss the benefits of the Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative (MFCI) for hospitals, clinics, mothers, infants, and clinicians
2) Provide a forum for discussion among nurses, doctors, doulas, childbirth educators, midwives, administrators and others on the challenges and opportunities of implementing mother-friendly care in the clinical or hospital setting.
3) Provide a forum for dissemination of evidence-based best practices for maternity care.
4) Support clinics, hospitals and community-based programs in developing plans of action to shift the thinking in their organizations towards mother-friendly care and develop multidisciplinary coordinated networks of maternity care providers.
5) Practitioners and students of maternity care will obtain an objective understanding of the collision of worldviews and belief systems when the medical and midwifery models of maternity care intersect.
6) Participants will describe how the perinatal community as a whole can best collaborate to provide optimal care for mothers and infants based on the principals of the MFCI and the evidence-based practices available as outlined in the 10 steps of the Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative (MFCI).
Principles of the MFCI are:Hermine Hayes-Klein, JD, is an American lawyer, mother, and founder of the international organization, Human Rights in Childbirth. Hermine has represented children as their attorney or guardian ad litem, litigated for LGBT rights, and mediated family disputes and divorce, among other things. Hermine lived in the Netherlands from 2007 – 2012, where both of her children were born at home with a Dutch midwife. She taught international law at The Hague University, and before moving back to the US, helped organize the first Human Rights in Childbirth conference in The Hague. In 2012, Hermine and her family moved to Portland, Oregon. Her legal practice now focuses on advocating for the legal and human rights of birthing women, including the defense of midwives and doctors who support women in the exercise of autonomous decision-making about their care.