"Safer Midwifery for Michigan" Wants to Build A Professional Website!

We are a group of families and professionals in the Lansing, MI area advocating for improved midwifery standards and safer midwifery practices. We are mothers, fathers, grandparents, midwives, doulas, midwife apprentices, nurses, and physicians whose lives have each been touched by unsafe midwifery practices in some way. 

As we all worked to learn, and answer our own questions about out-of-hospital (i.e. homebirth or birth center) midwifery over the last few years, we came to realize how difficult it is to track down good information. Currently, there is not a "one-stop" resource available to families who are interested in learning more about midwifery, who are looking for a care giver, or who need help/support in dealing with injury or loss. We can change that and you can help!

The money we raise on this campaign will directly fund the design, development and maintenance of a "Safer Midwifery for Michigan" website. Professional website work isn't cheap, but we believe that having a well designed site is very important, especially for such a complex issue. The features on the site will not only help Michigan families, they will also be great resources to families, lawmakers, and caregivers around the country.  Here is an overview of what we plan to include:

• The Issues: links to learn more about the issues affecting education, licensing, practices, standards, legislation/laws, insurance, philosophy, reporting outcomes, birth centers, and safety
  
• Resources:  FAQ’s, Questions to ask a midwife before you hire one, statement about out of hospital birth, link to birth center accreditation website, links to collaborative care models that include CNMs, link to MI’s care giver search engine to see if a licensed provider has had disciplinary action taken against him/her, list of providers that support natural childbirth
• Legislation: statement of current laws and how they impact care, proposed legislation summaries, information on how you can help support changes that will improve safety
• Injury & Loss: Support resources for loss families, and famlies of injured babies, links and documents for learning to whom you can report negligence and seek accountability, list of lawyers who represent families in MI in cases of negligence, resources for navigating the state’s accountability processes
• How You Can Help: links, documents, and tips that offer specific ways you can contribute to change
• Dedication/Support Page: where people and businesses will have the opportunity to design a memorable space for a loved one, or name themselves or buisiness as supporters of Safer Midwifery for MI
  
• Projects: highlights of our current and past projects, how we’re working to make a difference
• Our Blog: Safer Midwifery for Michigan will be embedded
• Living Proof: a collection of birth stories

The Impact

Your contributions to this project will help improve safety and standards for every mother in our state by making important resources available. You will enable women and families to make more fully informed, and ultimately safer decisions for themselves as they embark on the journey of pregnancy and childbirth.

What We Need & What You Get

In order to get things going, we need to raise $5,500 to fund a professional website.  We've gathered estimates, and we would like to hire the team at Artemis to help us with this project.  The investment in a professional website with Artemis includes professional consulting, architecture, design, implementation, user training, and maintenance.  Every dime of the contributions we recieve will go toward creating a professional, and useful website from scratch. 

We're excited to offer gifts to thank you for your contributions.  Personalized notes for every contribution, bracelets, car decals, and library tote bags, are coming your way!  We would also like to offer any contributor the opportunity to add your name, special dedication, or business name, to our "Dedication & Supporters" page on the new website.  Think of it as our little way to thank you publicly.  You can also make an anonymous donation if that is your preference.  Best of all, every contributor anonymous or not, will get the satisfaction of knowing their contribution made a difference in the lives of many. 

Other Ways You Can Help

If you're not able to donate, there are still ways you can help!  

Help us get the word out about our efforts! Share our campaign (on Facebook, Twitter, email, etc.) with everyone you know. Let them know why it is important to you. Remember to use the Indiegogo share tools for an easy way to share!

We invite you to "Like" our Facebook page (Safer Midwifery MI) and follow our updates there. We also have a Twitter feed (SafemidwiferyMI).  We post regularly and share articles of interest.

Read the blog regularly and share it with others.  This helps raise awareness about an important issue of which many are not yet aware.

Later on, there will be specific tips on our (new! beautiful!) website for other ways you can help!