Title: Innovations in Maternity Health Services Committee Update
Author:
Section/SPIG: Maternal and Child Health
Issue Date:
This year Innovations in Maternity Health Services is continuing to focus on: What do pregnant women want and need? How do they make their decisions? Where do they get their information about birth options? How can health professionals facilitate their patients getting evidence based information to improve decision making. We want to stress “partnering” of practitioner and patient.
The mission of the Innovations in Maternity Health Services Committee is to raise the “hard” questions in childbirth: Why do we do this? Is it necessary? Is it mother and child friendly? Does it result in better outcomes? The continued growth of technology has caused loss of control by childbearing families of their birth options. At this time, the committee feels that the underlying structure of maternal health care delivery should be evaluated.
At the 131st Annual Meeting in San Francisco Nov. 18, the session entitled “Evidence Based Practices in Maternity Care” focused on the barriers to implementation of evidence based practice. We looked into areas such as, social determinants of birth culture and why medical practice does not follow the evidence.
The Innovations in Maternity Health Services Business meeting held on Monday, Nov. 17, at 6:30-8:00 p.m. was well attended. The 2004 Annual Meeting call for abstracts will be on Evidence Based Practice in Maternity Care, exploring social determinants of birth culture. For example, why health practices do not change when evidence is found that does not support conventional practice such as the use of electronic fetal monitoring, Cesarean section, induction and episiotomy. We would also like to address the Business of Birth, Barriers to Access of Care including malpractice issues. Another important issue we would like to include is vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC). The evidence shows with risk screening these births are safe but they are controversial and almost a practice of the past. We would like to present some evidence that shows they can be safe.
Our committee is very excited to announce that the resolution, “Safe Motherhood in the United States: Reducing Maternal Mortality and Morbidity” was passed by the full Governing Council. Thanks to the authors, Ina May Gaskin, Carol Nelson and Anne Richter for their excellent work in getting this resolution passed and entered into APHA’s permanent policies.
Barb Levin BarbL11@aol.com
Carol Nelson cpmcnel@usit.net