Contact: pressofficer@mana.org
Resources
1. Home Birth: An Annotated Guide to Literature
For those of you looking for evidence-based information on the outcomes of home birth, the Midwives Alliance of North America has created an online version of Home Birth: An Annotated Guide to the Literature, /research-1 or as a pdf, http://midwifery.ubc.ca/files/2012/12/Home-Birth-Annotated-guide-to-the-literature.pdf.
2. Evidence-Based Maternity Care: What It Is and What It Can Achieve
Milbank Memorial Foundation, Childbirth Connection, Reforming States Group (2011) http://childbirthconnection.org/pdfs/evidence-based-maternity-care.pdf
- Milbank Memorial Fund is a foundation that works to improve health by helping decision makers in the public and private sectors acquire and use the best available evidence to inform health policy. The Fund has worked on significant health policy issues since 1905.
- Childbirth Connection, founded in 1918, is a national not-for-profit organization that works to improve the quality of maternity care through research, education, advocacy and policy.
- The Reforming States Group, organized in 1992, is a voluntary association of leaders in health policy from all fifty states, Canada, England, Scotland and Australia
3. Blueprint for Action: Steps Toward a High-Quality, High-Value Maternity Care System
Childbirth Connection (2011) http://transform.childbirthconnection.org/blueprint/.
Who needs to do what, to, for, and with whom to improve maternity care quality within the next 5 years?
More than 100 leading experts set out to answer this question, reaching unprecedented consensus on the steps and actions needed to reform this critical and costly segment of the U.S. health care system. Five stakeholder workgroups collaborated to develop concrete solutions to the most pressing issues facing the U.S. maternity care system. The result is a detailed list of actionable strategies to improve maternity care quality and value centered on 11 critical focus areas for change:
- Performance measurement and leveraging of results
- Payment reform to align incentives with quality
- Disparities in access and outcomes of maternity care
- Improved functioning of the liability system
- Scope of covered services for maternity care
- Coordination of maternity care across time, settings, and disciplines
- Clinical controversies
- Decision making and consumer choice
- Scope, content, and availability of health professions education
- Workforce composition and distribution
- Development and use of health information technology (IT)
4. Home Birth Consensus Summit, October 2011, Statements of Common Ground
http://www.homebirthsummit.org/.
The Home Birth Consensus Summit brought a cross-section of the maternity care system into one room to discuss improved integration of services for all women and families in the United States. Delegates were a diverse multidisciplinary group of leaders with a passion for quality in maternity care and a commitment to work together to improve safety for women and babies across birth sites. The meeting was organized to explore diverse needs, to foster the discovery of common ground, and spark constructive action that will ultimately benefit all stakeholder groups. All perspectives and viewpoints were considered in this purposeful dialogue, while delegates explored every facet of the existing system and propose ways to move forward in the future.
Home Birth Summit delegates came to consensus on 9 Statements of Common Ground. These 9 spheres also constitute the basis for active work groups that are continuing to function as multistakeholder teams.
- Site of Birth Decision Making
- Collaboration
- Health Disparities & Equity
- Regulation & Licensure
- Consumer Engagement
- Interprofessional Education
- Liability
- Research & Data Collection
- Physiologic Birth
5. Health Care Reform Priorities for High Quality, High Value Maternity Care: An Essential Component of Women’s Health Care Across the Life Span
Childbirth Connection (2009) http://childbirthconnection.org/pdfs/maternity-care-in-health-care-reform.pdf
6. Issue Brief: Certified Professional Midwives in the United States
North American Registry of Midwives, Midwifery Education Accreditation Council, National Association of Certified Professional Midwives, Midwives Alliance of North America (2008) /pdfs/CPMIssueBrief.pdf
