PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — The state board that oversees certified professional midwives in South Dakota has reconfigured a key report they must file after every birth.

The changes affect what’s currently known as the Completion of Care form. Going forward it will be known as the Birth Reporting Form.

Other changes made to the form Thursday include:

Removing the entire instruction currently listed as “Prenatal.”

Adding the word “Maternal” to both sets of instructions currently listed for “Post partum.”

And replacing “42 days” with “28 days” in the “Neonatal Transfer” instruction.

Those steps come after Eudine Stevens, a state-licensed midwife from Conde, raised questions about whether the form met state law. State assistant attorney general Steven Blair told the board Thursday that she made valid points.

The board, down to three active members while waiting for the governor to make new appointments, agreed that the state-required reports provide key data.

“That’s important information for us to know,” president Debbie Pease of Centerville said. 

“In the public, this is the most-asked question I get,” vice president Susan Rooks of Oral said. 

“I understand the value, I really do,” said board secretary Autumn Cavender-Wilson of Granite Falls, Minnesota.

Rooks noted that the legislators who asked her were those who seemed to her to be least favorable to midwifery.

The Legislature legalized midwifery in 2017.

Midwives reported 42 births to the board last year.