Covering Women's Issues – Changing Women's Lives

Wednesday, April 17, 2013 SIGN IN SIGN UP RSS

• HOME
• Culture & Tradition
  • Arts
  • Our History
  • Religion
  • Cultural Trends/Popular Culture
  • Traditions
  • Aging
  • Marriage/Divorce
  • Parenting
  • Lesbian and Transgender
• Media
  • 21 Leaders for the 21st Century
  • Cheers and Jeers
  • Journalist of the Month
  • Books
  • Media Stories
• Perspectives & Views
  • MomAgenda
  • SisterSpace
  • Commentary
  • Our Daily Lives
  • Uncovering Gender
• Politics & Influence
  • Campaign Trail
  • Education
  • Equality/Women’s Rights
  • International Policy/United Nations
  • Leadership
  • Military
  • Peace
  • The Nation
  • The World
  • War
  • Washington Outlook/Congress/White House
• Work & Labor
  • Business
  • Economy/Economic Policy
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Equal Pay/Fair Wage
  • Labor
  • Retirement
• Justice
  • Crime Policy/Legislation
  • Domestic Violence
  • Genital Mutilation
  • In The Courts
  • Immigration
  • Incarceration
  • Law
  • Rape
  • Prostitution and Trafficking
  • Sexual Harassment
• Health & Science
  • Health
  • Medicine
  • Reproductive Health
  • Abortion
  • Mental Health
  • HIV/AIDS
  • Athletics/Sports
  • Women in Science
  • Environment
• SERIES

The Global MOMS Act seeks to make C-sections more available to women in the developing world. Another maternal health bill--this one focused on the U.S.--flags the procedure as dangerous when it becomes routine.

(WOMENSENEWS)--Congresswoman Lois Capps of California couldn't have been less surprised when the recent U.N. development goals review conference spotlighted faltering financial commitments to maternal health in the developing world.

Already aware of the problem, Capps this spring introduced a bill prodding the United States to make good on its commitment to Millennium Development Goal No. 5, which seeks to reduce maternal deaths by 2015 by three-quarters from 1990 levels. Called the Improvements in Global Maternal and Newborn Health Outcomes While Maximizing Successes Act, it's better known as the Global Moms Act.

The act would require the president to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to improve global maternal health in developing countries, which account for 99 percent of the deaths tied to pregnancy and childbirth, according to the World Health Organization.

It also says the money should be spent to ensure greater access to voluntary family planning services, antenatal and prenatal care and making available Cesarean sections, when necessary.

While Capps' bill focuses on women in the developing world, Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, a congresswoman representing the 34th District of California, which includes downtown Los Angeles, has authored a maternal-health bill that asks U.S. legislators to turn their gaze inward to what's going on here.

She introduced the Maximizing Optimal Maternity Services for the 21st Century Act--better known as MOMS for the 21st Century Act--in July.

Other lawmakers--Rep. Kathy Castor of Florida and Rep. Eliot Engel of New York--are also either already backing or introducing legislation on maternal health care.

Hearings Likely Next Year

Debbie Jessup, a nurse midwife and staffer at Roybal-Allard's office, doesn't expect that any of them will get a hearing this year; early 2011 is more likely. "The more involved consumers get in pushing for some legislative action, the better chance we will have of moving the packet of maternity care bills," she said.

Roybal-Allard's bill is spurred by the rising maternal death toll over the last two decades in the United States, particularly among black women.

The two bills--one focused on women in the developing world and one on women in the U.S.--show the different approaches needed for the best maternal health outcomes.

"Successful models that work here won't necessarily work abroad," said Ann K. Blanc, director of the maternal health task force at EngenderHealth, an international reproductive health organization based in New York.

Access to life-saving drugs such as misoprostol, an anti-inflammatory medication used to prevent hemorrhaging, can go a long way to protect mothers around the world, she says. In the United States maternal fatalities are not due to a scarcity of basic drugs.

In particular, the Moms acts show the two faces of C-sections in preventing and promoting maternal death.

In the developing world, limited access to C-sections is one reason mothers are dying in childbirth. While the Global Moms Act seeks to make C-sections more available to women who lack access to them, Roybal-Allard's bill confronts what she sees as a problem of excess in the United States.

Cesarean sections in the United States account for nearly 32 percent of all births, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. The World Health Organization says the optimal rate for C-sections should not be less than 15 percent.

SUBSCRIBE DONATE

PRINT