Alright CNMs and CMs, y'all are about to be real pissed at me but it needs to be said: y'all are the good girls. It's literally in the history of how and why nursing came to be. And because of it, you have done CPMs no favors at all.

So why do I say this? Before there was the nursing profession, there were wise women, sage femmes, witches, brujas, warlocks, the works. We were the healers of our communities. And by we, I am not dividing this up along racial lines. We all, including white people, had healers.

Now if you read "Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers" by Barbara Ehrenreich, you understand that this book is not only a white-washed history of midwifery and nursing but also an indictment of how nurse-midwifery contributed to the perversion of midwifery.

What is the most striking to me in this book, and also my research on this topic is that women were neutralized by becoming nurses. Nurses were meant to always serve under doctors.

Nurses have been the good girls for most of the history of nursing. Don't get me wrong. I love nurses. I have nurses in my life that are wonderful human beings. But the fact still stands that it was meant to be a subservient position.

So with the nurse-midwifery thing, this credential is proof of the medical establishment's need to approve how it is midwifery is practiced in this country. It has very little to do with safety and I will tell you why.

If nurse-midwifery was meant to make pregnancy and childbirth safer, physicians wouldn't feel the need to provide us with oversight and think we are inferior to them. Many of us were duped into thinking we get respect if we just jumped through the hoops. Like good little girls.

In the case of some of us, nurse-midwifery is a means to be able to reach the most vulnerable people. There are teams of hospital-based midwives that are making a huge difference. I am not knocking that. There are CNMs and CMs who are extraordinary. This is not about that.

Nurse-midwifery is also more accessible to folks who can access financial aid. CPMs often have to pay out of pocket and piece their stuff together. Being a CNM can be cost-effective for folks who are fine with college debt. I get it. But you cannot divorce yourself from history.

The reason that this contentious relationship between CNMs/CMs and CPMs must be spoken about plainly is that CNMs are often roadblocks for us to be licensed and also respected.

There are CNMs that think we are beneath them. That we don't know as much or aren't qualified to be midwives. This, my friends, is an example of how you have sold your soul to the patriarchy by thinking that your knowledge is superior because an institution gave it to you.

The future of midwifery does not involve more schooling. It doesn't include more medications and more machines. And for us to actually be a unified midwifery force, out of hospital midwives, CPMs, and traditional midwives must be just as respected.

These CNM programs teach you the approved version of midwifery. Unfortunately for you all, you are not taught the art of midwifery. Your programs have been stripped of herbs, the ability to see with your intuition, skilled hands, and a connection to the wild woman energy.

Truth be told: if CPMs were able to exist in their full scope without being restricted by legislation and the ingrained fear of trusting earth-based medicine, we would be the unmatched experts in out-of-hospital birth. Sadly, even CPMs are starting to be corrupted.

In NYS, one major reason CPMs are not licensed is that the CNMs in this state threw us under the bus so that they could get the legislation passed back in the early 1990s. CPMs were promised to be written in later but that never happened.

CNMs/CMs in NYS made no effort to rectify this wrong until the last three years. And one reason is there has been no reason to have us licensed. It wasn't important enough to them for 30 years that countless communities didn't have midwives because their midwife is illegal.

The thing about being a good girl is eventually someone else has to be the bad guy for you to remain the good girl. So CPMs decided to not get with the program of master degrees but did get credentialing. And this good girl/bad girl thing continues.

So CNMs/CMs in my life, I am not saying to stop practicing. I'm not even saying that I can't fuck with you because I do. I understand that this may have been the only way. But that doesn't absolve the CNM profession from how problematic it is.

The professionalization of midwifery has done us few favors. And both those things can be true at the same time. In terms of race, the good girls I speak of in this country are majority white women.

And white women have a weird relationship with white men of wanting to be equal to them and also hating them for their subjugation. This tension is constantly playing out and makes it the reason why white women are agents of patriarchal white supremacy.

So, the proliferation of the CNM rests squarely on the shoulders of white midwives as well as the fucked up shit ACNM constantly does, including its racism and its lukewarm relationship with CPMs. And I will no longer be silent about this dynamic.

I became a CPM because of my ancestors and because I understand that midwifery in the walls of a hospital is a version of it but not what it could be like.

We are by nature autonomous providers who are agents of revolution and resistance, and we need to reckon with how being professionalized has muzzled us. And I could go on forever y'all.

I love yous. But enough with tiptoeing around this shit.

"The natural (or alternative) birth movement began in the 1950s and 1960s when mostly college-educated White women came across writings from Europe that inspired a desire in claiming their right to joyful and empowered birthing experiences.

They challenged the medicalization of childbirth and the hegemony of male physicians and medical technology while building alternative grassroots birthing communities across the country."

This is from a literature review I co-wrote with a dope co-conspirator that I never got to publish. I will keep going:

"While this movement has been successful in the incorporation of family members in the delivery room, reducing routine medical interventions, and the creation of birthing centers...

"...it has presented a false narrative of White midwives and birth advocates following in the footsteps of vanishing Black granny midwives."

"In other words, the story that is often told is that there has been a revival of midwifery in the United States instead of acknowledging that the more accurate way to explain the situation is that White midwives were brought midwifery to the mainstream but in fact..."

"... midwives continued to practice. It is presented as though Black grand midwives disappeared and mainstream midwifery rebirthed the practice."

"Furthermore, the political advances made by natural birth movement in legalizing midwifery, as well as the development of doulas, lactation consultants, childbirth education classes and other improvements for childbearing individuals..."

"...do not challenge the entrenched inequalities rooted in the commercialization of health care and the rise of the medical-industrial complex."

"This movement appealed to legislators and gained the successes of midwife legalization, for example, by aligning itself with motherhood and consumerism rather than advocating for safe, empowering perinatal care as a human right for all regardless of ability to pay."

Natural birth advocates portray medicalized birth as a patriarchal invention by male doctors. This is inaccurate and what is the narrative that white midwives are fed.

This ignores the racial origins of the field of obstetrics in the United States, and the fact that the advances made in the field of obstetrics and gynecology were made primarily by White male physicians to only benefit middle-class and affluent White women.

Back to NYS real quick to wrap this thread up. The same CNM who aided in throwing us under the bus 30 years ago decided she didn't want to die with that guilt and has kinda been helping until recently. How does that work? Who wrote this script?

And this is why I am calling you all in. Stop this shit. We are not the enemies. I actually don't give a fuck if you don't agree with how we practice or if you feel that your degree is the gold standard. Just admit this though.

Admit that you know in your gut that hospital midwifery is a shadow of what midwives are capable of. Admit that you haven't stood up for CPMs collectively. Let's be honest and squash this shit. Because if you know me, I don't deal with elephants in rooms.

I will not be in unity with any of yous until you reckon with your history and how you have wronged us. I am the type that does not accept apologies until you outline exactly why you're apologizing and what you plan to do to rectify the wrongs. And admit that shit publicly.

You go on and have a good night now. I've said enough this week.

P.S. Black and POC CNMs are not exempt from my critique. Just in case that wasn’t clear.