MOMS for the 21st Century Act :: Update

So as I've blogged about before, there's an act out there called MOMS for the 21st Century Act.

As a reminder, here's the overview of the act:

Official Summary

7/21/2010--Introduced.Maximizing Optimal Maternity Services for the 21st Century or the MOMS for the 21st Century Act - Amends the Public Health Service Act to require the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), acting through the Office on Women's Health, to:
(1) establish the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Promotion of Optimal Maternity Outcomes; and
(2) develop and implement a consumer education campaign to promote understanding and acceptance of evidence-based maternity practices and models of care for optimal maternity outcomes among women of childbearing ages and families of such women. Requires the Secretary, acting through the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, to make publicly available and update an online bibliographic database identifying systematic reviews for care of childbearing women and newborns. Requires the Secretary, acting through the Administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration, to:
(1) designate maternity care health professional shortage areas under the National Health Service Corps program;
(2) establish a loan repayment program to alleviate critical shortages of maternal care professionals; and
(3) award planning and implementation grants to address workforce disparities for such professionals. Directs the Secretary to support the establishment of two additional Centers for Excellence on Optimal Maternity Outcomes to conduct research to improve maternity outcomes. Requires the Secretary to convene a Maternity Curriculum Commission to discuss and make recommendations for:
(1) a shared core maternity care curriculum;
(2) strategies to integrate and coordinate education across maternity care disciplines; and
(3) pilot demonstrations of interdisciplinary educational models. Amends title XVIII (Medicare) of the Social Security Act to cover services provided by a supervised student midwife or an intern or resident-in-training under a teaching program under certain circumstances.

(www.opencongress.org, 2010)


After reading this morning's blog A Tale of Two Moms / ACOG Pulls a Fast One from theunnecesarean.com, I realized that the war has now begun.

According to the ACOG's May 2010 update, their new bill, Making Obstetrics and Maternity Safer (MOMS) Initiative, will:

ACOG’s MOMS Initiative is a multi‐pronged approach that will help the U.S. develop and implement evidence‐based interventions to improve maternal health.
1)Understand the Causes, Improve Interventions for, and Reduce the Prevalence of Premature Births.
2)Focus on Obesity Research, Treatment, and Prevention.
3)Improve Surveillance and Data Collection On Maternal and Infant Health.
4)Support Maternal/Infant Health Programs at HRSA.
5)Research Disparities in Maternal/Fetal Outcomes, to Eliminate Disparities.
6)Develop, Test and Implement Quality Improvement Measures and Initiatives.
7)Test an Obstetric Medical Home Model

ACOG is scrambling to gain ground - financial ground - that they are losing to home births and midwives. They have only been about the care of their Obstetricians, not their patients, and it now shows. I am both saddened yet joyous. I can only hope that by re-posting this (and see more people re-post) that it gets the word out there. There's only ONE MOMS Act and it's NOT the ACOG's.