Our Vision

Our Mission

Our Beliefs

• Pregnancy, labor and birth, and the early postpartum and newborn period are especially important and sensitive times in the lives of women and their families.
• Most childbearing women are well and healthy and as such have every reason to expect an uncomplicated birth and a healthy newborn.
• The U.S. health care system is in disarray, and many pregnant women face challenges in obtaining safe, effective, woman- and family-centered maternity care consistent with the best research.
• Women have the opportunity and the responsibility to make informed decisions about their care beginning early in pregnancy through the postpartum period. The decisions they make and the care they receive can have lasting effects on their health and the health of their babies.
• To exercise their legal right to informed consent and informed refusal, women need access to full and accurate information based on the best available research about all options for care from early in pregnancy through the postpartum period. Women need to have a choice among a reasonable range of care providers and care options so they can make informed decisions and choose and receive the care that is best for them and their babies. 
• Caregivers and institutions have the responsibility to provide evidence-based care that respects and supports the innate physiology of pregnancy, labor and birth, and the mother/baby connection, and addresses the family’s needs, values and preferences.
• Women and their families can improve the quality of maternity care for themselves and others by becoming informed, planning carefully, voicing their needs and concerns, and challenging the established childbirth beliefs and practices that are not beneficial to mothers and babies.
  

• Evidence-Based Maternity Care
• Needs of Healthy Childbearing Women
• Informed Consent and Informed Refusal
• Hormones Driving Labor and Birth
• Cascade of Intervention