The Senate Committee on Families and Children unanimously voted Tuesday to advance a bill that would make midwife services more accessible to many patients in Kentucky.
Licensed certified professional midwives offer prenatal, postpartum and labor and delivery services to pregnant Kentuckians.
“Often this care is offered in a smaller home setting that has relieved mom and newborn from the exhaustion and the challenge of travel back and forth for office visits,” said Sen. Shelley Funke Frommeyer, an Alexandria Republican who is the bill’s lead sponsor.
However, the state’s Medicaid program currently is not required to cover various services provided by licensed certified professional midwives.
Senate Bill 89 would change that.
Mary Kathryn DeLodder, of the Kentucky Birth Coalition, told the Senate committee that licensed certified professional midwives already attend a majority of planned home births in the commonwealth.
She said most home births attended by licensed certified professional midwives can’t be covered by Medicaid. That puts many patients with Medicaid insurance coverage in a tough spot.