High-Cost Malpractice Insurance Causes Serious Access-to-Care Issues for Women

"Physicians are quitting the baby-delivery business or leaving states where juries award lawsuit 'lottery prizes' to parents with impaired newborns, says Thomas Purdon, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). 'Liability insurance has become unaffordable or even unavailable,' he says." (USA TODAY, May 6, 2002)

"Over the last four years, malpractice insurance rates for ob/gyns have jumped as much as 150 percent, prompting record numbers of obstetricians - about 1 in 11 nationwide - to scale back their services to gynecology only." (Self, Magazine, April 2002)

Licensing professional midwives to practice in the home will:
• Restore access to some of the maternity care that has been dwindling because of malpractice concerns; and
• Improve outcomes for families having homebirths, decreasing the cost to the state for educating children with special needs caused by birth injuries.

But this solution will not be effective if malpractice insurance is required. Women are paying the consequences of rising malpractice insurance premiums through rising health care costs and less access to quality care.
South Dakota law does not require doctors, nurses, or nurse midwives to carry malpractice insurance and it shouldn’t require it for homebirth midwives.

Provide SD Moms with Access to Quality Care License Certified Professional Midwives
SDSafeBirth.org