Nurse Midwives Services Now Offered at UCLA Medical Center, Only Hospital-Based Midwife Service on West Side


Date: April 10, 1998
Contact: Warren Robak ( warrenr@support.ucla.edu )
Phone: (310) 206-1960

Combining nursing traditions with state-of-the-art medicine, nurse midwives have joined the health care team at UCLA Medical Center in Westwood.

Certified nurse midwives have begun offering prenatal and birthing services, in addition to complete women's health care, alongside the hospital's physicians. UCLA Medical Center is the only west side hospital to offer complete nurse midwifery services.

"Nurse practitioners have a long tradition of providing careful and compassionate care to women," said Dr. Alan DeCherney, chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UCLA. "By adding nurse midwives to our health care team, we are giving our patients an option that doesn't exist anywhere else in this part of the city."

UCLA Medical Center adds its nurse midwifery program in conjunction with the UCLA School of Nursing, which has centralized its nurse midwife training program on the UCLA campus. Two nurse midwives who have established a practice in Westwood serve as the core faculty members of the School of Nursing's 3-year-old nurse midwife training program.

A recent study published in the American Journal of Public Health examined more than 1,300 low-risk women whose children were delivered by nurse midwives, obstetricians and families physicians. The federally funded study, done by researchers at the University of Washington, found that the Caesarean-section rate for nurse midwives was 8.8 percent, compared to 13.6 for obstetricians and 15.1 percent for family physicians. The study found no differences in the health of the babies.

The first nurse midwives began practicing in the United States in the 1920s, and today about 5,000 certified nurse midwives practice nationally, including about 850 in California. The interest in nurse midwives has grown recently as a way to lower costs and meet the needs of patients.

"Nurse midwives offer an approach to women's health that involves all the social issues in a women's life," said Mary Day, one of the new UCLA nurse midwives and acting director of the UCLA School of Nursing nurse midwifery training program. "We try to educate our patients and give them as much control as possible over their care. We offer a low-tech, high-touch approach."

"Pregnancy should be a wellness issue, not a illness issue, unless there are complications," said VeraJo Bahry, another nurse midwife who has opened a practice at UCLA. "When it's necessary, we have no hesitation calling a physician to manage a complication. Patient safety is our No. 1 priority."

UCLA's nurse midwives provide complete prenatal, delivery and postpartum care. They also provide routine gynecological care, such as birth control and pap smears. Most insurance plans provide coverage for nurse midwives, just as they do for obstetricians and gynecologists.

"Nurse midwives are really in demand right now because more and more doctors are seeing the value of having a nurse midwife in their practice," said Day, who has been delivering babies and providing gynecological care for 17 years.

UCLA Medical Center has been named the best hospital in the western United States for seven consecutive years in a survey conducted by U.S. News & World Report. To make an appointment with any UCLA health provider, patients can phone the UCLA referral line at (800) UCLA-MD1.

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