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 |Add To My Favorites |Track Bill | Version: 10/11/25 - Chaptered
 09/10/25 - Enrolled
 03/24/25 - Amended Senate
 02/19/25 - Introduced

 SB-520 Nurse-midwifery education program.(2025-2026)

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 Date Published: 10/13/2025 02:00 PM

SB520:v96#DOCUMENTBill Start

 Senate Bill

 No. 520

 CHAPTER 601

An act to add Article 7 (commencing with Section 128570) to Chapter 5 of Part 3 of Division 107 of the Health and Safety Code, relating to maternal care and services.

 [
 Approved by

 Governor
 October 11, 2025.

 Filed with

 Secretary of State
 October 11, 2025.
 ]

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

SB 520, Caballero.
 Nurse-midwifery education program.

Existing law creates the Vocational Nurse Education Program within the Department of Health Care Access and Information for persons agreeing to serve in an eligible county health facility, state-operated health facility, or a health workforce shortage area, before completing vocational nursing school. Existing law authorizes a person who qualifies for admission to a vocational nursing program to apply for funding under the program, as specified. Existing law establishes the Vocational Nurse Education Fund for the purpose of promoting the education of vocational nurses and related administrative costs.

This bill would create the California Nurse-Midwifery Education Fund within the department for the purpose of establishing California-based, master’s level,
 nurse-midwifery education programs within the California State University, the University of California, or both. The bill would require the department to administer the fund, and receive moneys from the General Fund for these purposes upon appropriation by the Legislature. The bill would require the department to establish a competitive application criteria to ensure the optimal sites selection for the education programs within the California State University system or the University of California, would require the department to ensure that a master’s degree is an option for students as the culminating degree of the education programs receiving funds, and would require the education programs to meet specified requirements. The bill would also require the fund to support the annual operating costs for the development, operation, and maintenance of the education programs through the graduation of the first cohort of matriculated students, or 5 years, whichever is shorter.

Digest Key

 Vote:
 MAJORITY 
 Appropriation:
 NO 
 Fiscal Committee:
 YES 
 Local Program:
 NO 

Bill Text

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.

 The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) California is experiencing a maternity care access crisis. Over 50 maternity wards in California have closed since 2013, and 20 freestanding birth centers have closed in just over three years. These closures create significant barriers to reproductive health care, and potential risk to birthing people. The closures compound an already significant problem, the obstetrical and reproductive health care workforce shortage in California.

(b) Midwifery care has demonstrated excellent outcomes to improve maternal health.

(c) When midwives are integrated into health systems, we find more spontaneous vaginal birth, labor after cesarean, vaginal birth after cesarean, breastfeeding, patient confidence and control, patient-centered care, and lower cost, and we also see fewer undesirable outcomes, including cesarean birth, operative vaginal delivery, induction of labor, episiotomy, perineal lacerations, use of pain medicine, epidural anesthesia, continuous fetal monitoring, neonatal intensive care unit admissions, preterm birth and low birth weight infants, infant emergency department visits, and hospitalizations and neonatal deaths.

(d) Midwives are also recognized as a component of the solution to address race-based disparities, especially when provided by culturally, linguistically, and racially competent
 providers.

(e) The supply of California midwives falls short of other high-income countries where birth outcomes are better. Countries with better birth outcomes rely on midwives to provide the safest, highest quality care to healthy people, freeing up physicians to give the highest quality specialty care to high-risk patients. For example, the California maternal mortality rate i