The gentlebirth.org website is provided courtesy of
Ronnie Falcao, LM MS, a homebirth midwife in Mountain View, CA

Why Midwives Don't Get Sued

I know what you mean about the lawsuits. Seems to me they (docs) want it both ways, patients who do what they are told and don't hold them accountable for making decisions for them.

I think there is a very good reason why the docs get sued and the midwives don't. Consider: the doctor tells you from the beginning that you must have all these tests, procedures, exams, etc. Why? To make sure the baby is OK. Well, that sounds reasonable. So Suzy Patient goes along with the doctor because she wants a healthy baby and he says if she does what he says everything will be great. Fine. So what happens when everything has been done according to the doctors preferences and the mother and father give up their choices to him and everything is NOT OK? Well, it seems to me that the logical one to sue is the one who made all the promises, right?

Now the midwives (especially the independent ones) don't make these kinds of promises. They are in a partnership with their clients where it is their duty to evaluate the mother and baby and make recommendations for treatment based on the idea that the parents will make wise decisions given the proper information. Since the parents now feel that they have had an active role in the decisions made about their care, they are less likely to sue if something goes wrong.

The bottom line is that there are no guarantees. Sometimes things go very wrong in even the best prepared and most healthy people. All of us who undertake to grow families must accept that on some level. But it isn't fair to treat parents as if they couldn't possibly make good decisions and then get mad at them when they blame you for the bad outcomes.

Doctors are not God and they never fail to remind us of this fact after they have been held accountable for their actions. Before that, they know everything! Right?