Thank you for being a member of the Home Birth Summit community. These are our community guidelines.
About the Home Birth Summit
Families are ill-served when there is conflict around place of birth. At the historic 2011 Summit, national leaders who have traditionally disagreed about optimal settings for birth – including physicians, midwives, researchers, health administrators, payors, policymakers, and consumers – crafted a series of common ground statements that describe a vision for improving maternity care in the US across all birth settings.
The common ground statements are now a foundation for collaboration and continued dialogue across sectors. Since 2011, this diverse group of stakeholders has worked together to develop and implement concrete, transformative initiatives addressing: women’s autonomy and experience, regulation and licensure, interprofessional education and collaboration, risk management, access to physiologic birth, research gaps, and disparities in access to high-quality, respectful maternity care.
Our Online Community
We have created an online community to broaden the conversation, and to disseminate the information shared at Home Birth Summit III: Advancing Equity through Voice, Policy, Practice, and Research.
When engaging with the Summit delegates, we ask that you:
Please help us to keep the conversation in the spirit of the respectful dialogue that has created our ability to move forward on these initiatives. We are all here to address our shared responsibility for high quality, maternity care across birth settings in the United States, regardless of our own opinions about an individual’s choices.
Stay focused on the Home Birth Summit consensus statements and conference-related content. We have one goal: constructive discussion and consensus-building that leads to successful collaboration between health professionals and results in improved experience and outcomes for women and families. While we understand that our community may be active in other issues, we ask that you not post on topics that may be divisive, including abortion, circumcision, and the decision whether or not to vaccinate.
Please do not promote your business, sell items, or conduct business in our community.
Manage disagreements thoughtfully. We value the conversations that will help us all learn more by engaging in healthy dissent. Please ensure that your comments respectfully articulate your disagreement with a person’s ideas and do not attack the individual. We will protect our community as a safe space by deleting comments that are abusive or do not respect community members.
Respect all members of our community. Comments that are racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic will not be tolerated. Similarly, comments that are not supportive of people of different abilities, sizes, or religions will also be deleted.
Keep your language positive. Posts or comments containing foul, abusive, profane or vulgar language will be deleted. Content that is of a sexual or explicit nature will also be deleted.
No medical advice. Our site cannot provide medical advice online. Please contact your health care provider for health care concerns.
Ensure copyrights and personal information are protected. Please do not share photos, videos, or other information that is either copyrighted or for which you do not have permission.
Please bring your questions about our community policy to a moderator. If you have questions about this policy, please feel free to message us privately on Facebook or e-mail us here at helpdesk@birthswell.com. Please do not post publicly with questions about why your comment was deleted. If you are truly unsure, contact us and we’re happy to share with you our reasoning.