ACNM CO Affiliate Meeting
4/7/21 @7:00p.m. Via Zoom
People in attendance: 20
Jeanne Bair- President, Elisa Patterson- Vice President, Denise Smith- Treasurer, Gillian Brautigam- Secretary, Kala Kluender- Member-at-Large, Kelsey Magnuson- Student Representative, Jessica Anderson- ACNM Region VI Board Rep
Suzanne Carrington, Jessica Crumley, Kristin Simonson, Lorell Erwin, Alicia Johnson, Kris Combs, Brie Thumm, Amy Wallace, Bonita Shviraga, Ellen Brockman, Jane Avery, Jennifer Fields, Chantielle Blackwell
Call to Order:
Jeanne Bair, President
● Announced scholarship to annual meeting
○ Kala & Carolyn Bottone-Post were the board winners of the scholarship to this year’s annual meeting
○ No student applied for student scholarship and therefore it was not awarded (money will be saved for future)
○ Taylor Leininger: student awardee deferred her scholarship last year in hopes of in-person meeting this year, and will be attending the virtual meeting this year
● Symposium:
○ Annual CO Nurse Midwifery Symposium, Elisa Patterson- chair
○ 2 people have volunteered today for the Committee
○ Looking for more volunteers
○ Virtual on 10/8/21
ACNM Region VI Update:
Brie Thumm
● Alliance for Innovation in Maternal Health: recruiting hospitals to be part of the bundles
Jessica Anderson
● New ACNM CEO announced in Oct 2020: Katrina Holland, BA, CAE
● Annual Meeting
○ Dismantling Racism in Midwifery: Acknowledging the Past and Building a Better Future
○ May 23-25. The meeting will be completely virtual again this year. Registration is open at https://annualmeeting.midwife.org/
○ There will only be 1 business meeting this year (rather than 2)
■ Voting will be improved and people will be more able to speak
■ Submission of topics will be streamlined
○ Registration is equivalent if not better than last year
○ Virtual platform will be available so if you “attend” you can watch every session later
● Voting: please vote, the National Organization has historically had low voting participation so make your voice heard
● Bullying task force - sending out a survey in the next 1-2 mos, please take survey so they can learn what bullying happens and who it affects
● Racism in midwifery education: will be sending out initiative
● Racism roadmap: how we are addressing racism within our organization
● Apology was sent out: to reconcile the wrongdoings
○ Next to come out will be the true history of midwifery and our organization as it should be written
● Legislative Issues:
○ Worked actively with DEM sunset (Senate Bill 101): passed Senate and moved into House - should pass in its form
■ Added Dem in birth center
■ Added Group B strep prophylaxis
■ Adding data to birth certificate to say where labor started (to gather how many people started at home and delivered in the hospital) - that piece of data has been hard to gather in the past
○ Senate Bill 21-009: we supported, pays for birth control for a year for undocumented women (all methods including LARCs)
○ Senate Bill 193 & 194: birth equity (paired) Bills
■ Put together with the help of Elephant Circle
■ We chose to support 194 - goes to the Judiciary Committee on 4/22
● Statement about malpractice carriers to cover VBACs whether they are in a hospital or community birth - our concern is then carriers will choose to cover no midwives
● Diana feels this is something where COPIC needs to step in/weigh in and make a stance
● We want to see it taken out of the Bill because the rest of the Bill is strong and addresses a lot of women’s rights that need to be upheld
● These bills don’t have any appropriations with them yet - which is the budget for them; sometimes they create a budget that is unaffordable and prevents Bill from being passed
● Has a section where they want more data gathered and more stories told and community member on the M&M Committee
■ 193- goes to Health & Human Services Committee on 4/14
● when out-of-hospital birth happens, their plan for transfer to hospital has to be articulated in writing, home or birth center birth is called a “community birth,” however hospitals don’t have to have a plan and they’ve refused transfers of moms and.or babies
● This says there must be a plan for “professional collaborative care”
● ACOG & Children’s Hospital Lobbyist both surprised this could be a problem: Why does this have to be legislated? Why can’t we just fix this?
● Shackles in labor: was made illegal before but there were no consequences or accountability and this changes that
○ Colorado Midwifery Association (CMA): they have been very involved with smooth transfer of patients from community to hospital, they are in support of all providers being compensated the same for the birth regardless of license
Treasurer Report
Denise Smith
Update specific to Q121:
● Major cost is our lobbyist
● Major income is dues
● JEDI speaker series brings in income as well: has paid for itself so far
● Bank account balance: $28, 797 + COD’s: $5,000 + $2,700 = $36,497 total
● $12,500 in BIPOC scholarship fund, if we pay out scholarship this year it would be for $3,500
● Receipt or invoice needs to accompany any request for payment from the Affiliate
● Life members can pay affiliate dues through the national office. ACNM will reach out to life members once a year and ask them to pay or life members can contact them to pay.
○ This may not have happened for you yet, if you have a life membership. So you can just send a check to Denise for $100/year
○ Denise will send out details via ACNM Connect
● If you donate to scholarship it is through the ACNM Foundation and that is tax deductible
● Link to donate: http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07ehmqhogkkli95rml/a01a4kn888tyl/questions (also can be found on our website)
Lorell Erwin
● Update on Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (JEDI) Committee
● Getting ready to award our first BIPOC Scholarship - goal is to improve equity in birthing communities
● Seeking volunteers for Committees
○ Education & Communication
○ Scholarship Criteria
○ Scholarship Fundraising
Project Cure:
Kris Combs
- Took a 4 month break due to COVID restrictions
- Still limited to 10 people/month
- All slots taken for the year with the exception of July and December: looking for volunteers, it can be any group of people
- Please email her if you are interested: midwifekris@msn.com
- Next April: Denver Health, May: St Joes
Summer Affiliate Meeting:
● August in Glenwood - anticipated 8/6 or 8/7
● Plan a large party with families invited and a separate business meeting via Zoom so out of towners can attend
● Kala will send out a survey to gauge interest/preferences for day of week
Next Meeting: June 2nd at 19:00