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CIMS, the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services, a group working toward transparency in maternity care, today announced that consumer survey results rating health care providers and birth facilities are now available online at www.thebirthsurvey.com.

The CIMS Transparency in Maternity Care Project: The Birth Survey is the first ever consumer ratings website dedicated solely to providing feedback on obstetricians, midwives, hospitals, birth centers, and home birth services. The consumer reviews include overall ratings and recommendations for birth facilities and care providers, and also a seven-item set of questions on providers’ interpersonal and communication skills, facility intervention rates, and information on finding good care. A national average of ratings is also displayed to provide comparison with individual ratings.

Do you need help finding a mother-friendly obstetrician, midwife, doula, or childbirth educator? Please call Mindy at (716) 380-0689 or email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

You can also check our online local resources guide, but note that this is a work in progress and more resources are available than are relfected by the guide.

Our very own Rachel Zeller has been featured in an article about birth in Buffalo and beyond in an article in Art Voice. Please check it out!

Getting Off Our Backs

by Lindsay Berman

How women are reclaiming birth, one midwife at a time

Eileen is not coming to your house with a bottle of gin,” says Eileen Stewart.

The director of Buffalo Midwifery Services and a certified nurse midwife, Stewart is one of many midwives across the country trying to demystify the public’s image of midwifery, including the notion that it is an old-world holdout whose method of choice is liquor. Stewart says her mission is to help women understand their birthing options, their bodies, and their rights.

This focus on the re-empowerment of birthing mothers and the firm belief in the mental and physical control women can have over birth breeds contention between the traditional medical community and midwives, naturalists, and women seeking alternatives to medicalized birth. ...