This March when Mary Nelson stepped down as Chair of SDSCO after many years of dedicated service, we took up the challenge to try to take her place. It hasn’t been easy, but with God’s help and that of the many other dedicated supporters (including Mary), we are striving to further the goals of SDSCO. Let us briefly introduce ourselves. Quint was born and raised in Sioux Falls & Debbie grew up on a ranch 30 miles southwest of Aberdeen. We both graduated from the University of South Dakota with degrees in education. This is where we met & were married. Debbie taught for 4 years before staying home to be a full-time mom. Quint has spent the last 17 years as a teacher and administrator at ASPIRE High - a school for at-risk students. We would not be able to take on this job without the support and understanding of our 9 amazing children (ages 3-15).

We have heard that passing midwifery legislation is like climbing a long stairway and this seems to be a good analogy in South Dakota. Every year we are climbing higher and higher, building on the work that has been done in the past. Amazing progress was made this year in the legislature and we are all working to keep the momentum going.

Since March, SDSCO has added an Advisory Board (see article on page 3), 3 new board member – Paul & Anita Levijoki, Todd & Nadine West & Tanya Olson - and Tenille Manning Heier has taken over as editor of the newsletter. There are many other people working behind the scenes – making phone calls, writing letters, raising money, baking
brownies, etc. and we are grateful to all of you. It took a whole lot of people from around the state to put on our 4 city Legislative Workshop Tour at the end of June. Thank you so much to all of you who helped accomplish this, especially our speakers – Ida, Heather, & Mike – and Paul Levijoki who was our chauffer and tour guide. Not only did they donate their time and talent, but they paid their own expenses along the way!

The Workshops helped us to build on the momentum from the legislative session with great press coverage and opportunities to connect with many legislators in the off season. We also had meetings with the Dept. of Health, the Board of Nursing, the state’s CNMs, and the Governor’s Advisor on health issues. We hope to set up a meeting just prior to the Birth Conference that will include all these key people. Our hope is that working with these state agencies and the state’s CNMs will help us to get a bill passed in 2008 that addresses the needs of home birth families.

It is going to take everyone’s help to accomplish our goals. We would like to be able to hire Paul as our lobbyist again and rent a house in Pierre, where many more supporters would be able to come and stay during the session. To do this, we will need a financial commitment from all of our families. We need to have good attendance at our Healthy Birth Conference (see article on page 4), which is focused on bringing all of us together as we “meet in the middle.” And we need to have everyone contacting their own legislators and helping us to build our supporter lists, so that we will have even more people contacting their legislators. The Birth Conference gives us another opportunity to invite our legislators to an SDSCO event where they can learn more about midwives and the families that they serve. Friday night’s session will be especially geared towards legislators. Let’s all send them a note around Labor Day (see article on page 4)!

There are now 23 states using the CPM credential. There are many other states working on legislation just like we are in South Dakota. The momentum is building. More and more legislators are listening, but it is going to take all of us working together to accomplish this worthy goal. Please read the rest of this newsletter and decide how you will help pass midwifery legislation in 2008. We look forward to working with all of you!