American College of Nurse-Midwives

The American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) is the professional organization for certified nurse-midwives and certified midwives. Established in 1955, it was the product of a series of circumstances that made its creation necessary. In the mid-1940s, the National Organization for Public Health Nursing (NOPHN) established a division for nurse-midwives. In 1949, the nurse-midwifery division of this organization released the first national descriptive data on nurse-midwives [1]. A few years later, when national nursing organizations underwent a general reorganization, NOPHN was absorbed into the American Nurses Association (ANA) and the National League for Nursing (NLN), and neither organization provided an identifiable provision for a nurse-midwifery entity. Instead, nurse-midwives were assigned to the Maternal-Child Health - National Nursing Committee, which encompassed fields such as obstetrics, pediatrics, orthopedics, disabled children, and school nursing. The scope and focus of this committee were too broad to serve as a forum or spokesperson for nurse-midwives. Ironically, despite nurse-midwives holding leadership roles in maternal-child health care education, professional, and federal organizations, they were often not recognized specifically as nurse-midwives.