NVRH Midwife Impacts Health Outcomes Globally

ST. JOHNSBURY, VT (June 12, 2023) – Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital (NVRH) Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM) Jade Kaplan, who has recently returned from the Mediterranean, where she worked with refugees, has been inducted as a Fellow in the American College of Nurse Midwives (ACNM).

The ACNM states that, “The Fellowship in the American College of Nurse-Midwives (FACNM) is an honor bestowed upon those midwives whose demonstrated leadership within ACNM, clinical excellence, outstanding scholarship, and professional achievement have merited special recognition both within and outside of the midwifery profession.”

Kaplan was the first midwife to work at a hospital in rural NC that cared for Appalachian and First Nation families. She also serves on the VT Maternal Mortality Review Panel, VT Midwifery Advisory Committee, and the NNEPQIN Steering Committee. She has also done international work at a birth center in Nairobi, Kenya.

Before joining NVRH in 2017, Kaplan was employed at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, MA and held OB/GYN clinical faculty appointments at Tufts Medical School and UMass School of Medicine, where she taught and supervised OB/GYN residents as well as midwifery students.

Kaplan, who co-authored an American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) journal article on collaborative maternity care in 2011, continues to focus on collaboration: she was instrumental in creating the NVRH Perinatal Marijuana Use Task Force, which wrote and distributed educational materials on marijuana use. She also continues to support a small Kenyan group that makes and distributes reusable hygiene kits to rural Kenyan school girls. Having access to these products allows girls to stay healthy and in school.

“We are so incredibly lucky to have Jade here at NVRH and that the hospital supports her drive, her passion, and her commitment to women and their families, “NVRH Birth Center Director Laura Emery said.

As an American College of Nurse-Midwives Fellow, Kaplan will serve as a resource and work with others to add to the vast wealth of knowledge, wisdom and expertise represented by the body of Fellows.

“I feel incredibly honored to receive this recognition from the ACNM, it is really meaningful to me to be seen and acknowledged by the profession I felt called to join thirty-three years ago,” Kaplan said. “Midwifery practice is for the benefit of women and families who receive our care and invite us to be present for a most precious and powerful time in their lives. We should never lose sight of this – that it is the real honor.”