The Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA) was founded in April 1982 to build cooperation among midwives and to promote midwifery as a means of improving health care for North American women and their families. Its stated goal is to unify and strengthen the profession of midwifery, thereby improving the quality of health care for women, babies, and communities. History When MANA was founded there were many organizations that midwives had been instrumental in organizing and that provided a means of communication and support. However none had a membership base broad enough, an internal support system, or the political credibility to promote midwifery as an accepted part of the maternal-child health care system in North America. In October 1981, Sister Angela Murdaugh, of the American College of Nurse-Midwives, invited four non-nurse midwives and four nurse-midwives from around the country to Washington D.C. to discuss issues confronting all midwives, with special emphasis on the communication concerns between American midwives trained as nurses and those who were not formally trained. A decision was made to form a "Guild" that would include all midwives with four purposes in mind: to expand communication among midwives; to set educational and training guidelines; to set guidelines for basic competency and safety for practicing midwives; and to form an identifiable professional organization for all midwives in the U.S. Throughout its history MANA has advocated for the belief that birthing mothers should be able to choose their places and caregivers at birth and that midwifery should be decriminalized. In April 1982, nearly 100 women from around the country met in Lexington, Kentucky. At this meeting the name Midwives Alliance of North America was chosen, and it was decided that Canadian midwives would be included in the organization. Officers were chosen and a newsletter Practicing Midwife (changed to MANA News in 1983) was established. In October 1983, the first MANA convention was held, and the members elected Teddy Charvet as President, Ina May Gaskin as Vice President, and Rena Porteus as second Vice President. Much of MANA's organizational energy has been directed toward making national midwifery certification acceptable and workable within the medical community and thereby accessible to women. By 1986, it had become clear that midwives needed to create an internationally accepted direct-entry midwifery credential if they were to preserve the unique forms of practice which midwives had developed over the last thirty years and at the same