Connecticut midwifery working group seeks smoother hospital transfers for home births

A Connecticut midwifery working group met virtually to discuss ways to make transfers from planned home births to hospitals safer and less traumatic for families. Participants included community midwives, hospital-based midwives and obstetricians, representatives of the Connecticut Department of Public Health and health foundations, and hospital-system staff. The group approved its previous meeting minutes and spent the bulk of the session collecting firsthand accounts and concrete recommendations for improving transfer workflows.

The Department of Public Health’s policy director, Miriam Miller, said she helped lead “the governor’s maternal health proposal that led to the new licensure category for birth centers,” and that she was in the meeting primarily to listen and learn. Several hospital clinicians described a recurring dynamic of mutual distrust: hospital staff are often anxious about liability and receiving transfers…