Woman advertising 'traditional midwife' services in B.C. not qualified to practise as a midwife, college warns

A public warning has been issued about a Vancouver Island woman advertising herself as a "traditional midwife" and offering her services at home births even though she's not qualified to work as a midwife.

According to a public advisory from the B.C. College of Nurses and Midwives, Karma Dawn of Victoria has been holding herself out to be a midwife, but has never held a licence for midwifery and is not authorized to practise.

Dawn's website says she offers something called "traditional midwifery" services, including pre- and post-birth coaching sessions and attendance at home births.

"Traditional Midwives (TM) have been involved in delivering babies, and providing a broad range of other services to women, for hundreds of years. They are usually local women with little formal education," her website states.

In B.C., midwives must complete a four-year university program and pass a national exam before they can be licensed or call themselves midwives.

Dawn alleged in a lengthy email to CBC that she is the target of a "modern day witch hunt" by the college.

"What I can say to you and to them, is that, once they stop gaslighting, abusing, raping, torturing and traumatizing women during their birth processes, my work and that of all the other women who are in true service to women will be able to stop," Dawn wrote.

She went on the write that "childbirth is not a medical event" and is "meant to be left alone."

Dawn said "medical midwifery is a betrayal to the women who are birthing and to the medical midwives themselves, as they do not know that their actions are so traumatizing and violent to the mothers and new babies being born in to this world."

Anyone interested in verifying that a midwife is licensed can search the college's registry online.

The advisory about Dawn comes just days after the college put out a public statement about a woman it says has been posing as a nurse and trying to get work in B.C. hospitals.

The college says Charrybelle Talaue, who uses several pseudonyms, is not a registered nurse and has never been one.