Certified Nurse Midwives in Oklahoma!

  Welcome to the Home Page for the Oklahoma  Nurse-Midwives!

Your Oklahoma midwives would like to welcome you to our site!  Our mission is to help you understand what it is midwives do for you and your family, and the incredible enjoyment you can recieve from choosing midwifery care for your needs as a woman - whether in Menopause, early teens, pregnant, in between babies, or just wanting a female provider who is trained in being "with women".

       Here are some facts regarding nurse-midwives in Oklahoma:

Nurse-midwives have been practicing in Oklahoma since 1980.  The first nurse-midwifery practice was at an Indian Health Services Hospital.

There are currently 68 midwives practicing in many parts of our great state.  Most are providing full-scope care, which means they will care for you during pregnancy, do your birth, take care of you Post-Partum, then follow you through the years of birth control, into Menopause, and into your older years.  Midwives care for patients from early teen through advanced age.  They are specially trained for, and are considered Primary Care Providers.

Midwives in Oklahoma practice in a variety of settings including hospitals, clinics, health maintenance organizations, private practices, birth canters, private homes, public health departments and colleges of nursing and medicine.

                                                Education: 

There are currently 43 accredited education programs in the United States, offering post-Baccalaureate certificate and Matsre's deggree in nurse-midwifery.  A number of these programs have distance learning education options.  Although there are currently no Midwifery programs in Oklahoma, there is a post-graduate program at the University of Kansas, several in Texas, and two very large schools at the University of New Mexico Albuqueque, and Arizona State University in Tuscon.

                               Practice and Reimbursement issues:  

Nurse-Midwifery in Oklahoma is regulated by the Board of Nursing as a category of Advanced Practice Registered Nurses.  Specific statuatory recognition was first granted in 1980.  The latest numbers available from the OK Board of Nursing are from 2007, when the 20 existing CNMs attended 1,827 births* which was 3.3% of all births in OK for that year. Midwifery presence has more than tripled since that time, and new statistics will be added here when they become available.   As you can see, Midwiferuy is still somewhat new in OK, unlike the surrounding states, or most of the rest of the United States.

Medicaid reimbursement was approved in 1988.  Reimbursement is at 100% of the Physician Rate.

Oklahoma Governor Henry Bellmon recommended in his 1989 report entitled "A Brighter Future" that educational resources support the training of Certified Nurse-Midwives and that barriers to practice be investigated and removed.

CNM's in OK have prescriptive authority as do all Advanced Practice RNs in the state.

Oklahoma does not mandate third-party reimbursement. Most insurance plans in the State of Oklahoma, including Champus, provide the choice for Midwifery care.

*Number may underestimate, as sources only include ACNM and self-reported info.