This is part of The Vaccine Divide, a data investigation into America’s potential loss of its measles-free status as the deadly virus roars back and childhood vaccine defenses continue to crack and crumble.
\n\nWhen Roberta Devers, a midwife in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, did a prenatal check on an expectant mom this week, the woman — a member of the Amish community in her third trimester — had been sick with measles.
\n\nDevers said she has cared for dozens of pregnant women infected with the virus since measles began spreading rapidly in the county in April. Lancaster County is largely rural, with sprawling family farms.
\n\n“Every single day,” she said, “someone’s calling to ask what they do. They’re pregnant and they’ve gotten it, or their babies have gotten it.”
\n\nDevers, 63, estimates she has delivered nearly 2,000 babies in her 38-year career. She has a degree in maternal and fetal health, but she is working as an unlicensed, traditional midwife in Pennsylvania, independent of the hospital systems and without physician oversight. State law bars traditional midwives from practicing medicine.
\n\nDevers said she questioned immunizations as a young mother and never vaccinated her son.
\n\n“There was as much information against vaccines as…
Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/