The Innovations in Maternity Care Committee continues to explore the impending crisis in the provision of maternity services in the United States at this time. Members of the committee, a working coalition of certified nurse midwives, certified professional midwives, physicians, and other maternal and child health advocates, are focused on the problems in access to care which pregnant women are experiencing across the country. The root factors for these service limitation problems include: provider shortages, difficulties with malpractice, and facilities that are closing obstetrical units because of financial problems. The magnitude of the lack of care is yet to be calculated, and benign neglect seems to be the overwhelming policy.
At present, there is no national plan for dealing with this crisis, so the Innovations Committee is beginning a year-long effort to describe the problem of access to maternity care, both in quantitative and qualitative terms. The first step is to develop an appropriate databank on the extent of these concerns, so each state affiliate will be asked to assess access issues in that state.
In Philadelphia, at the 133rd APHA Annual Meeting, the Innovations in Maternity Health Services Committee began this process by sponsoring a session entitled “Who’s Left to Catch the Baby?” It was moderated by Dr. Charles S. Mahan, former Florida health officer and emeritus Dean of the University of South Florida, who now serves as the director of the Lawton and Rhea Chiles Center for Healthy Mothers and Babies. Researchers and the papers they presented in the session included the following:
Belinda K. Rogers -- Increasing access to health care for pregnant women through the Healthy Beginnings Campaign
Lynn Bourgeault -- Who’s left to catch the baby?
Kenneth Johnson and Betty-Anne Daviss -- Disturbing trends in the use of epidemiologic research on VBAC in North America
Jean Ewan -- Empowering women through multicultural enhanced doula support: an evaluation of the Birth SistersSM Program
There was also a very interesting poster session, Improving Access to Maternity Health Services, composed of an additional eight papers on the same subject.
In the call for papers for the 2006 Annual Meeting, the same theme for our committee has been continued as Who’s left to deliver the babies? We welcome abstracts which discuss women’s rights to access to comprehensive maternity care, issues of malpractice costs, impact on provider availability, and innovative community responses to the maternity care crisis, including issue’s such as VBAC, breech delivery, induction, electronic fetal monitoring, out-of-hospital settings, and doulas.
Please consider joining the Committee in its efforts to support women and their families in accessing appropriate maternity care, which is fundamental to public health. For more information, contact Committe Chairs Carol Nelson, cpmcnel@usit.net, and Barb Levin, BarbL11@aol.com.