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Robbie Davis-Floyd Presenting the New International Childbirth Initiative: 12 Steps to Safe and Respectful Mother Baby-Family Maternity Care
A Human Rights Focus for Mothers and Babies
 This global initiative, developed in a consultative consensus process, holds clear actions steps to improve the Reproductive Health of birthing people and their newborns around the world, including promoting universal health care, the midwives model of care, and access to respectful and culturally safe care for all. Partner organizations include: International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (FIGO), International MotherBaby Childbirth Organization (IMBCO), White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, (WRA) International Confederation of Midwives (ICM), International Pediatrics Association (IPA), Lamaze International, International Childbirth Education Association (ICEA), Every Mother Counts, Buhmi Sehat Foundation, DONA International, and Mercy in Action.
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Listening to Mothers in California Survey Results
First state level fielding of national survey
 We are excited to announce the release of Listening to Mothers in California, a statewide population-based survey of women who gave birth in 2016. It is the first state-level fielding of the national Listening to Mothers survey and the first Listening to Mothers survey available in both English and Spanish. The survey provides extensive, timely, previously unavailable data about women’s maternity care and related experiences, views and outcomes. The new survey highlights the voices of women themselves and focuses on important topics such as women’s choice of and preferences for maternity care arrangements, maternity care practices, bias and discrimination in health care, disparities faced by women of color, postpartum care and support, breastfeeding experiences, maternal mental health and more.
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Register Now for Pre-cons, Post-cons, and Special Dinner Honoring Our Bodies Ourselves
See registration page for separate event registrations
Some of our pre-cons and post-cons are filling up, others need more participants. Register now with or without conference registration. You can also attend a traditional New England Dinner honoring Judy Norsigian and the founders of Our Bodies Ourselves with a special performance by Inanna, Sisters in Rhythm (event included in conference registration) even if you are not attending the conference. Purchase dinner tickets or register for a pre- or post-conference workshop at the conference registration page here.
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 MANA Awards Ceremony
Penny Simkin is coming to #MANA18 to receive Outstanding Educator Award!
Don’t forget to join us for the MANA Awards Ceremony on Saturday, October 13th during our conference. We are thrilled to be presenting awards to members of the birth community who are leaders, researchers, and others who have distinguished themselves in service to MANA, their communities, and birth. We are so excited to be honoring Penny Simkin, PT with our Outstanding Educator award for her 50 years of educating families and nearly 30 years of educating doulas.
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Honoring Midwives & Birth Workers
Help us memorialize the colleagues we lost in 2018
MANA honors and remembers our deceased colleagues at the annual conference. If you know of a midwife or birth worker who passed on in late 2017 or 2018, please let us know so that we can remember their contributions publicly. Please send any information you have, be it a name or a personal remembrance or obituary, to Sarita Bennett. Thank you!
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 Conference Highlights
Presentations on Reproductive Rights
Referrals for Unintended Pregnancy: Abortion Literacy for Non-Abortion Providers: A special pre-conference workshop with Anna Pfaff and Tamika Jackson from Provide
Training for Community Midwives rarely includes options counseling and abortion referrals. What do you do when it is your client who is faced with the need to make a decision about continuing their pregnancy? This is where Provide comes in. Provide works with health and social service providers to build a health system that, in a climate of diminishing access, is equipped to respond to women’s health care needs around abortion.
The session begins with recognition of how the provider’s feelings and attitudes might conflict with their professional responsibility to honor clients’ decisions and privacy, and the emotional importance of honoring clients’ right to make their own decisions.
Placing abortion and other specialized care in the context of necessary reproductive health care, Provide trainers address common myths about abortion, share basic information about what a woman can expect when accessing abortion, and teach pregnancy options counseling techniques, including validating, seeking to understand, and referring.
Participants will receive the tools and support necessary to offer the best care to their clients, enabling them to refer clients to local abortion and other specialized service providers with knowledge, skill, and comfort.
Abortion Through the Eyes of our Clients: A Round table Discussion led by Roula AbiSamra
When do people choose abortion? What do they experience when accessing abortion care? How do midwives support them through it? For those of us who provide both abortion and birth care, how did we get to where we are, and why does it matter to us and our clients? This session offers an informal, moderated conversation with midwives who provide the full spectrum of pregnancy care.
Full Spectrum Midwifery & the Law: Learning from the Past, Preparing for the Future with legal experts Farah Diaz-Tello and Melissa Mikesell
Concerned about diminishing access to abortion care? Options for clinic-based abortion are vanishing, more people are unable to access formal health care systems, and various laws have been used to criminalize people for ending a pregnancy or helping someone else to do so. In this session, legal experts Farah Diaz-Tello and Melissa Mikesell will provide an overview of the past, present, and future of self-managed abortion, discuss laws that might affect midwives’ practices or their clients, and explain various and possible changes in the laws if Roe v. Wade is overturned. Throughout history, midwives have helped women hasten, prevent, manage, or end their pregnancies and have been a trusted source of information and support. Participants in this session will learn how they can support people seeking information or care related to self-managed abortion.
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Sponsor, Advertise or Exhibit
Put a product sample, flyer or discount certificate in conference attendee bags
Half and full-page advertising spaces are available in the conference program book. We also have space in the attendee swag bag for you to showcase your services or wares: you provide the swag (flyer, pamphlet, trinket, sample - the options are many) and we provide the bag. Both the program book and the swag bag are given to every conference attendee when they check in. Fees start at only $150.
In addition, there are only two exhibit spaces still available. Three full days of mingling with interested and interesting birth workers is not to be passed up!
Take a peek HERE to see how easy it is to promote your business. Our deadline to advertise in the program book is this Friday, September 21.
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State Leadership Day Replaced with Conference Round Table Lunches
Please take note that the all day Wednesday meeting of State Leaders has been replaced with Round Table Lunches during the conference. Contact Nicole White for more information.
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