In the not-too-distant future, lots of babies may make their debut in the arms of a University of the Pacific graduate.
Amid a nationwide shortage of obstetricians, UOP is launching a new degree program aimed at nurses who want to train as midwives. Its creation is a response to an alarming need around the nation.
“We created this program because we’re experiencing a huge maternal health crisis nationally and locally,” Bethany Sasaki, UOP’s midwifery program director, said in a statement.
There already are too few practicing obstetrician-gynecologists, according to reporting from The Hill, a Washington-based news service that focuses on politics and policy. OB-GYNs — there were about 50,800 of them as of 2018 — are having trouble meeting demand. Making matters worse, many are older, and their ranks are estimated to thin further by 2030.
The shortage is especially acute in rural America. About 140 rural hospitals have closed since 2020. Many still in operation no longer offer maternity wards, the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform reported in July.
In California alone, only 25 of 59 rural hospitals offer labor and delivery, the center says.
Moreover, as many as 13 of the state’s 58 counties do not offer obstetric services, making them “maternity care deserts.” Women may be as far away as a two-hour travel time from a health facility where they can receive care, UOP says.
The shortage puts expectant mothers in a precarious, if not dangerous, position of not being able to reach a hospital in time.
“People are forced to choose between driving many hours in labor risking a birth en route, moving their whole family closer to a hospital in the last months of pregnancy, or delivering at home without a skilled attendant,” Sasaki said.
The risk of a woman dying during pregnancy, during childbirth or in the first six weeks after delivery is 81% higher in rural areas, the Atlantic reported last month. These are issues that UOP believes midwifery can help solve.
“We have decades of data to show that midwifery has better outcomes for low-risk women,” Sasaki said. “It has lower rates of cesareans, lower rates of complications and better breastfeeding rates.”
UOP’s master’s program in midwifery plans to admit 10 to 15 students twice a year, starting in 2027 at its Sacramento satellite campus. To accommodate students who are working nurses, classes will be conducted one or two days a week. There will be both two- and three-year tracks to the degree. The university says it has lined up 36 hospitals, birth centers and home-birth settings where clinical training can be conducted.
Some local health industry officials have offered their support.
A midwifery program will not only help alleviate workforce shortages, but help ensure that more communities get equal access to quality care, said Marty Ardron, senior vice president of hospital system operations for Kaiser Permanente and also a member of UOP’s Board of Regents.
And UOP says it also has the backing of David Ziolkowski, CEO of St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Stockton.
“As we work to improve maternal health outcomes throughout greater San Joaquin County, having a world-class training program in our own backyard is a game-changer,” UOP quotes Ziolkowski as having said. “We look forward to the profound impact these graduates will have on the families we serve.”