Distance required for midwives

Specialties CNM

Published

I am planning to apply to programs this summer, but had a couple of thoughts. Are there regulations on how far a birthing center must be from a hospital that does deliveries? All of our birthing hospitals are 45 minutes to one hour away no matter what direction you go. I would love to open a birthing center one day, but not sure of the regulations. Also, do most facilities (any kind) require that you live a certain distance away? We are completely willing to move to wherever necessary; however, it is always nice to stay close to home and not uproot my family if necessary.

Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Hi and welcome.

These regulations are going to vary by state. You might want to consider looking at your states practice act.

Best wishes

Specializes in OB.

I don't know of any states that have regulations stating how far a birth center may be from a hospital. I could be wrong, but I doubt it. Also bear in mind that there are AABC-accredited birth centers, but also many non-accredited birth centers out there. ACNM recently put out a nice PowerPoint presentation about the state of midwifery in the U.S., and one of the slides shows a map of all the accredited and non-accredited birth centers by state, hopefully you can access it:

http://www.midwife.org/acnm/files/ccLibraryFiles/Filename/000000004315/Understanding-Practice-Environment.pdf

Any job where you have to take call may require that you live a certain distance from the hospital, it varies from practice to practice.

Hope that helps.

Wow, thanks. That was a very informative PowerPoint. After reading it I think I need to move. Lol.

Specializes in OB.

Yes, I found it very informative as well. Still have a lot of work ahead of us!

Specializes in Nurse-Midwife.

The AABC addresses distance a birth center is from a hospital on their website as well.

Distance: How far is too far? | American Association of Birth Centers

Some state do require that... for example in NY the requirement is 15 minutes (as if its no hard enough already to open up a birth center there!!!)

Come to northeast PA and open a birth center here... Ill gladly assist you in anyway I can lol!!!!

Specializes in Reproductive & Public Health.

Just want to throw out there that when you are on call, you generally have to be within ~20-30 minutes of the facility. Doesn't mean you have to *live* that close. Pretty much every hospital/birth center will have a call room.

Thanks guys. I appreciate all of your input. I agree we do have a lot of work ahead of us. The pay for Oklahoma seems so low on the PowerPoint. Thankfully I am not doing it for the pay.

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