Those seeking to become nurse-midwives can now study at the University of Iowa.

The UI Master of Midwifery program, approved by the state Board of Regents in September of last year, is currently in its pre-accreditation stage, meaning it is under review by the Accreditation Commission for Midwifery Education.

The program is a response to the dire lack of maternal care facing the state of Iowa and most of the country, according to an article on the UI Health Care website.

Lastascia Coleman, director of the upcoming master’s program, said she believes maternal care is more mobile now that midwives and physicians go into rural clinics to deliver prenatal care.

Coleman, who is also a UI clinical associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology-midwifery, said students in the program — which is five semesters and hospital-based — will benefit from being in a medical center as opposed to just a classroom.

“We already provide team-based care, so our students will be exposed to what that looks like and how to work with different types of providers,” she said.

Laura Dellos, UI clinical associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology-midwifery, said rural populations affected by the maternal care shrinkage should benefit from the outcomes of the program.

“There’s real challenges for people in rural communities who might be working in jobs that make it hard for them to get away from work and have the means of transportation to get in for care,” Dellos said.

The UI midwifery practice, she said, already extends maternal care to locations like Washington and Muscatine, so busy patients do not have to travel long distances.

The program will be funded for the first five years with a $10 million grant from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration. Otherwise, student tuition, UI Health Care, and the Carver College of Medicine will fund the program, according to regents’ documents.

As validation for the new program, the article cites the doubling of the maternal mortality rate over the three-year period of 2015-18 from 20 to 39 deaths, as well as the closing of more than 30 labor and delivery units across the state for the past two decades.

The request document also cites a statistic from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that employment opportunities for certified nurse-midwives are estimated to increase by 26 percent between 2018 and 2028.

Coleman, who is on the Iowa Maternal Mortality Review Committee, explained that the recent increase in the maternal mortality rate can be attributed to a rise in mental illness and substance abuse, in addition to hemorrhages and cardiovascular disease, which have always been big contributors to maternal mortality.

Coleman said certified nurse-midwives are useful in solving mental health problems like postpartum depression.

“We often refer them [patients] to a therapist if they need additional mental health treatment, if we started them on medication and that’s not helping, or if they don’t want to do medication,” she said.

Certified nurse-midwives are specially trained to provide maternal care for healthy women throughout their childbearing years and even after menopause, Dellos said, and are therefore qualified in ways that direct-entry midwives are not.

“Labor’s really hard work, and it’s physical and it’s vocal, and it’s loud and it’s messy and it’s beautiful and it’s wonderful and it’s scary, and it’s all those things,” she said. “If you don’t have a lot of experience, it can be hard and challenging to watch women in a process that seems overwhelming and hurts a lot—it does hurt.”

Dellos said certified nurse-midwives take a flexible, hands-off approach to maternal care, allowing their patients to make their own decisions, including having minimal intervention in the delivery process. She clarified, however, her practice is not anti-medication.

“For healthy low-risk women, the midwifery model is associated with good outcomes and is a real way that we can increase providers in our state,” she said.