A bill filed Tuesday would create a new regulated category of midwife. Currently, state law requires home births be handled by licensed nurse midwives under the supervision of physicians.
Sen. Thom Goolsby’s bill would create certified professional midwives, who do not have to be nurses but meet certain training requirements. They would be overseen by a new state council comprised of other certified professional midwives, a nurse midwife, a physician and a “home birth consumer.”
Last session, a bipartisan bill regulating midwives failed to make it out of committee.
