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.

Stay tuned...

I've been wanting to post a lot this week, but between work going into psycho crazy mode and then me realizing I'm half way through the semester and not giving anything (and having the grades to show for it) I found that I really didn't have time.

I have an update to the lady I wrote about on 10/2 regarding her VBAC. Apparently someone at CNN realized this was insane and a follow-up article came out on October 15th. Kudos to CNN, big thumbs up to the ACOG (never, ever thought I'd say that), and double boo to Banner. Why the thumbs up to he ACOG - because they had this to say to Banner:

Banner Health, which owns Page Hospital, says it decided to stop performing VBACs at Page when ACOG, the obstetricians' group, established guidelines for hospitals that Page Hospital was not adequately staffed to satisfy.

The ACOG guidelines recommend "24/7 coverage of both physician and anesthesiologist," and that "two physicians be immediately available during the entire period of labor," Banner Health said in a statement.

But ACOG spokesman Gregory Phillips says that's not what the guidelines say. "These appear to be Banner's interpretations of the stated recommendation," says Gregory Phillips.

The ACOG guidelines recommend that doctors consider several factors when determining if a VBAC is possible. For example, two criteria that can be considered are whether there's physician availability throughout active labor, and whether anesthesia and staff can be available for an emergency C-section.

Since the ACOG guidelines came out in 2004, more and more hospitals have refused to do VBACs. Today, nearly half of hospitals won't do VBACs, either because the hospital has banned them or because doctors won't do them, according to a survey of nearly 3,000 hospitals by the International Cesarean Awareness Network, a grassroots group that has fought against VBAC bans.

Typically, health care professionals rally around other health care professionals in these types of situations regardless if they are 'right' or 'wrong.' Mardsen Wagner calls it camaraderie and talks about this in his book (that I'm half way done reading) Born in the USA.

Anyway, the fact that ACOG is telling Banner, in a sense, that they're wrong feels like a win to us. I'll take it where I can get it.

=

On a personal note, S. and I are still at this trying to conceive game and growing very impatient. I know it's all in Jesus' hands and so does S., but some days are easier to accept than others. I've also started bringing up talks of adoption. Research on that subject has started, and we decided to give to spring of next year before we get fired up on adoption. I'm actually really excited about adopting. It's something I've always wanted to do, my heart has always felt a calling.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to apologize to all the ladies who waited a while to get their little one and my advice was always "relax, let it happen, stop trying, etc." I understand now why it was so frustrating to hear, how nice you were by grinning and saying "thank you", and how you really just wanted to tell me to be quiet. I appreciate all of the "advice" I've been given on the subject, really I do, but after a year of attempting to produce an offspring and getting the same retort, I'm going slightly crazy here.

Steven and I can not wait until we can post pics of our new family member (whether from our blood lines or someone elses).