We can do better to ensure moms go home with their babies!
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Dear Friend,
When a crisis like coronavirus (COVID-19) erupts, it puts a further strain
on ongoing public health and social issues. As the Guttmacher Institute
points out “the specific risk to pregnant women and their infants is not
yet clear, but these groups are often particularly vulnerable to
infectious disease threats. Therefore, many experts say an enhanced focus
on primary prevention for pregnant women is warranted.” [1]
Unfortunately, the current state of maternal health in our country already
isn’t so great, especially for Black women and Native families and
communities. MomsRising member, Alia, who shares:
“That’s the moment I thought I was going to die. I was too far gone to
feel fear, but I did feel an overriding sense of regret. What a shame, I
thought, that we’ll never get to raise those beautiful children together.
What a shame that my children, whom I already love so much, will never
know their mother.”
Like too many Black moms, Alia almost lost her life to childbirth. Alia
survived, but too many moms in our nation do not. Every person giving
birth deserves as safe and healthy of an experience as possible and should
have the opportunity to watch their child grow up and thrive. Every child
should have a chance to have their mother by their side.
[ [link removed] ]**Sign NOW to tell your members of Congress to support The Black
Maternal Health Momnibus!
Right now, the United States is the most dangerous place to give birth in
the developed world,[2] with major racial disparities where Black women
lose their lives at 3 to 4 times more than the rate of white women due to
maternity-related causes, independent of age, economic background, or
education.[3] This is a fact that has done unchanged for several
decades.[4]
Kira Dixon-Johnson, for example, was in excellent health with no
pre-existing conditions when on April 12, 2016, she delivered a healthy
baby boy. Within 24 hours, however, Kira would lose her life after
bleeding internally for over ten hours due to a lacerated bladder.[ [link removed] ] For
ten hours her pain and her voice were ignored. For ten hours her family
begged for medical intervention to no avail. Kira’s death was preventable
and her story illustrates a tragic reality for too many Black moms in our
country. Racial disparities in care are needlessly costing lives, and
sending babies home without their moms.
This is why we need YOUR support to get the Black Maternal Health Momnibus
passed by Congress. This packet of legislation takes urgent, serious
action to end this crisis by building on existing legislation in Congress
to comprehensively address every dimension of America’s maternal health
crisis.
[5]**Tell Congress, support the most comprehensive legislative effort yet
to address the Black maternal health crisis in America!
The Black Maternal Health Momnibus is composed of nine individual bills
sponsored by members of the Black Maternal Health Caucus and Senator
Kamala Harris. The legislation will:
* Make critical investments in social determinants of health that
influence maternal health outcomes, like housing, transportation, and
nutrition;
* Provide funding to community-based organizations that are working to
improve maternal health outcomes, particularly for Black women;
* Comprehensively study the unique maternal health risks facing women
veterans and invest in VA maternity care coordination;
* Grow and diversify the perinatal workforce to ensure that every mom in
America receives maternity care and support from people she can trust;
* Improve data collection processes and quality measures to better
understand the causes of the maternal health crisis in the United
States and inform solutions to address it;
* Invest in maternal mental health care and substance use disorder
treatments;
* Improve maternal health care and support for incarcerated women;
* Invest in digital tools like telehealth to improve maternal health
outcomes in underserved areas;
* Promote innovative payment models to incentivize high-quality
maternity care and continuity of health insurance coverage from
pregnancy through labor and delivery and up to 1 year postpartum.
[ [link removed] ]**Add your name to our open letter to Congress to urge them to support
this historic piece of legislation to save moms!
Moms should go home and watch their children and families thrive. If we’re
going to save our moms, we need everyone to be a part of the solution.
And we know that right now, hospitals and healthcare systems are already
overburdened and the Coronavirus outbreak may get worse before it gets
better. During this time, it’s important to take care of our most
vulnerable populations, including pregnant and birthing patients. Bills
like the Momnibus packet will help us to do this, and also set up the
foundations we need to address future health crisis impacting our
communities.
Together we are a powerful voice in the movement to save moms.
-Nadia, Monifa, Kristin, and the whole [ [link removed] ]MomsRising/[ [link removed] ]MamasConPoder team
[1] [ [link removed] ]The COVID-19 Outbreak: Potential Fallout for Sexual and
Reproductive Health and Rights. The Guttmacher Institute.
[2] [ [link removed] ]NBC News. U.S. is the most dangerous place to give birth in the
developed world.
[3][4] [ [link removed] ]US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health.
The Black–White Disparity in Pregnancy-Related Mortality From 5
Conditions: Differences in Prevalence and Case-Fatality Rates.
[5] [ [link removed] ]The Washington Post. The crisis in America’s maternity wards.
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