Midwife Autonomy Endangered by MANA President Sarita Bennett

Every single major midwifery organization -- international and national -- advocates for autonomy for midwives. It is only with autonomy that midwives can create standards that are appropriate for their settings and for the desires of the childbearing families they serve. Ms Bennett's call for supervision by physicians has been amply proven not to work; supervision by physicians is the road to authoritarian and hierarchical control of midwifery by a competing profession that truly wishes midwifery to go away -- but will grudgingly accept midwifery as long as we play by rules written by those who do not understand midwifery or work within its pressures and framework. Because Ms Bennett has attained a DO, she now wishes to constrain practice only to those midwives who go to medical school or who bow to standards written by physicians. Research worldwide attests to the value and effectiveness of autonomous midwives who, whenever possible, will always work in collaboration with physicians so they can best safeguard the families in their care.

midwives deserve better

Fire Sarita now!

The vast majority of midwives are well trained and pursue lifelong education in their field to better serve clients. Midwives provide safe and culturally competent care for their communities which is essential to combatting the appalling racial health disparities and the rate of C-section and maternal morbidity/mortality in the US. MANA must remove Dr Sarita as she no longer shares the vision of the organization.

I am supporting this petition. As a student midwife my goals and dream is to one day work as a independent midwife in my community serving women. Having autonomy is one of the greatest blessing a midwife has and should never be taken away.

Sad that it has come to this.

We need to continue to keep our midwives by all means!

Women own their autonomy, not the medical community, and therefore, midwives should be free to autonomously serve their clients. We as women do not need the medical community creating or further perpetuating a false authority over our health, our pregnancies, our births, or our bodies. Enough is enough.

I am currently involved in expanding full practice authority for midwives in NJ. The position taken by Dr. Bennett is counter to recent and ongoing research demonstrating improved perinatal health outcomes where midwives have full practice authority. From the standpoint of evidence based practice, this robust evidence is enough to keep me fighting for the midwifery model of care, and full practice authority.

As a student midwife and homebirth client, I am disappointed in the type of representation given by Dr.Bennett. Such views of Dr. Sarita Bennett represent the contrary to the Midwifery profession/skill. Therefore she should be removed from MANA, at once. Her representation is a stain to the skill/profession of midwifery and its advances.

We must support our cpm colleagues

Sarita shows all signs of being a clinical narcissist and will say and do anything to anyone to grab power. She needs to never practice midwifery again. This is the last straw of many that many of us have known about for a long time. She was run out of west Virginia and has terrorized and endangered midwives in Virginia for too long. No more.

I urge the board of MANA to act immediately and remove Dr Sarita Bennett from her position as president, based on her words and actions that aim to undermine midwives.

I urge the board of MANA to act immediately and remove Dr Sarita Bennett from her position as president, based on her words and actions that aim to undermine midwives.

Are you kidding?? Autonomy.

It is in the best interest of MANA for Dr. Sarita Bennett, DO, CPM and President of MANA for her to resign from her position immediately. She is not upholding the vision or mission of MANA and its core philosophies. I agree with the call for her to resign. Melissa Sexton, The President of CMA

This is not okay. The midwifery model of care and the medical model of care work best when the compliment and respect one another. Midwives know this, Sarita used to know this, and more and more doctors are coming to know this. The threat of lost autonomy is unfounded and just does not make sense if the true goal is to provide women everywhere with the care they deserve.

Sarita is a danger to mother's and babies. It is well known that many have died in her care including my sister's baby. It must be because she is w doctor and not a midwife. Step down, you hypocrite.

You cannot serve two masters. If Dr. Bennett has decided that her medicine credential supercedes her midwifery credential, then she should have the integrity to resign the both her CPM credential and her position as president of MANA. To actively lobby against the documented benefits and body of knowledge of the art and science of midwifery from her position clearly illustrates her lack of integrity, ethical principles and her pathetic attempt to subjugate our profession to further he position in medicine. When someone shows you who they are, believe them! #BENNETTHASTOGO

Sarita has herself practiced in a manner that has resulted in fetal death snd maternal morbidity It is the height of hypocrisy gif her to walk this road For shame!!