Grassroots Initiative to Protect Women's Birthing Rights in Germany

Midwives in Germany earn around 237 Euros for a birth in the hospital, 445 Euros for a birth in a birthing centre, and 537 Euros for a home birth. But this is not sufficient to cover ever-increasing insurance costs. As compensation for the increase in the liability premiums, the health insurance plans provide midwives with an additional 4.39 Euros per hospital birth and 14.19 Euros for a non-hospital birth. This is not nearly enough to cover the cost of the ever-rising insurance premiums and midwives end up working to pay the insurance, rather than working to live.  The annual salary for midwives (before taxes and other required fees) is around 23,300 Euros. After all costs are taken away, a midwife earns around 7.50 Euros per hour.

As a result, birth centres are closing, midwives are being laid off, and some midwives are opting only to offer prenatal education and postnatal support, rather than helping moms deliver babies. This not only threatens midwifery as a career option, but also threatens the access of mothers to a midwife as their birth attendant. Currently, about 1/4 of German births are attended by a midwife (compared with between 2% and 5% in the Canadian provinces where public health care covers midwifery services ref: Canadian Institutes of Health Information). If the situation remains as is, those numbers will certainly drop. A drop in the number of midwife attended births in Germany, not only means fewer midwife attended births, but also greater pressure on other birth attendants (i.e. obstetricians).

In an attempt to find a solution to this problem, the German midwives have organized an e-petition and are collecting signatures in an attempt to force the Budestag (German Parliament) to discuss this situation.

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