{"id":611546,"date":"2023-02-24T14:49:57","date_gmt":"2023-02-24T20:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/24\/disparities-in-maternal-mortality-we-know-exactly-what-to-do-says-lawmaker\/"},"modified":"2023-02-24T14:49:57","modified_gmt":"2023-02-24T20:49:57","slug":"disparities-in-maternal-mortality-we-know-exactly-what-to-do-says-lawmaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/24\/disparities-in-maternal-mortality-we-know-exactly-what-to-do-says-lawmaker\/","title":{"rendered":"Disparities in Maternal Mortality? &#8216;We Know Exactly What to Do,&#8217; Says Lawmaker"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<nav>\n      <a href=\"http:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/obgyn\" tabindex=\"15.1\" itemprop=\"articleSection\">OB\/Gyn<\/a><br \/>\n      <span>><\/span><br \/>\n      <a href=\"http:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/obgyn\/generalobgyn\" tabindex=\"15.2\">General OB\/GYN<\/a><br \/>\n  <\/nav>\n<h2>\u2014 Black women are three times more likely to die in childbirth<\/h2>\n<p>\n      by<br \/>\n             <a href=\"https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/people\/sf6185\/shannon-firth\">Shannon Firth<\/a>, Washington Correspondent, MedPage Today                        <span itemprop=\"datePublished\" content=\"February 23, 2023\"><br \/>\n        February 23, 2023<br \/>\n      <\/span>\n          <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"js-main-content-region\" itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/articleBody\" itemid=\"#main-content-region\">\n<p>The head of the Centers for Medicare &#038; Medicaid Services (CMS) and co-chair of the House&#8217;s Black Maternal Health Caucus shared strategies for addressing disparities in maternal health during a panel discussion at HHS&#8217;s Black Health Summit on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>No matter their income or education level, Black women are three times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy-related complications. And these disparities are the direct result of systemic inequities, said Kamara Jones, acting assistant secretary for public affairs at HHS.<\/p>\n<p>Jones shared the story of a woman she met at a CMS health panel in Virginia, who told her that her way of tackling provider bias was to immediately introduce herself and her unborn child to physicians.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She would say &#8216;My name is Jasmine and this is Simone,&#8217; and she would point to her stomach, because she wanted the non-Black doctor to see her child as a human being even before it was outside of the womb,&#8221; Jones said.<\/p>\n<p>Another mother told Jones she kept a journal, not only as a keepsake but as a record, in case something went wrong.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is what Black women are doing daily to protect themselves and their children from these issues,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Asked what Congress and CMS are doing to promote equitable care, CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure spoke about the importance of having providers who listen  &#8212;  including doulas, midwives, and community health workers. CMS is working with states to ensure that an array of providers including those who are &#8220;health-adjacent&#8221; are part of maternal care teams, she said.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to providers who listen, data collection is also critical to addressing maternal health problems, Brooks-LaSure said.<\/p>\n<p>CMS is now beginning to include data requirements in its payment rules, for hospitals and providers, tracking metrics like unnecessary C-sections and excessive bleeding at delivery, she said.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, 28 states and Washington D.C. have taken up CMS&#8217;s offer of a waiver to extend Medicaid coverage for women and birthing people 12 months postpartum, Brooks-LaSure noted.<\/p>\n<p>CMS has also established a &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/publichealthpolicy\/washington-watch\/98289\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">birthing friendly&#8221; designation<\/a> for hospitals, she said.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.), who joined Brooks-LaSure on the panel, shared how her bill &#8220;The Momnibus&#8221;  &#8212;  written with Rep. Alma Adams (D-N.C.) and other members of the <a href=\"https:\/\/blackmaternalhealthcaucus-underwood.house.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Black Maternal Health Caucus<\/a>  &#8212;  addresses both implicit and explicit bias, &#8220;a.k.a. racism,&#8221; in healthcare.<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;Momnibus&#8221; is a package of 12 bills focused on addressing clinical and nonclinical drivers of maternal health disparities, she said. One of these, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/117th-congress\/senate-bill\/796\/text\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Veteran Moms Who Served Act,<\/a>&#8221; was signed into law last year.<\/p>\n<p>Other provisions of the legislative package include funding for training, ensuring that institutions show &#8220;a real commitment&#8221; to change and accountability, and reducing systemic racism in the &#8220;built environment.&#8221; She noted that Black people are more likely to live near toxic pollutants.<\/p>\n<p>Other parts of the package address mental and behavioral health concerns.<\/p>\n<p>In Illinois, Underwood&#8217;s state, mental health and substance use disorders are <a href=\"https:\/\/illinoisnewsroom.org\/mental-health-a-leading-cause-of-maternal-death-in-illinois-new-report-finds\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the number one cause of maternal death<\/a>, and communities currently lack the resources to address the problem, she said.<\/p>\n<p>While the signs and symptoms of postpartum depression are pretty well known in society, there isn&#8217;t the same level of familiarity, nor are there specialists on hand to address anxiety, suicidal ideation, and substance use during the postpartum period, she said.<\/p>\n<p>And to a degree, some provider groups and insurers aren&#8217;t set up to address these concerns. So, the &#8220;Momnibus&#8221; includes a bill, the &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/117th-congress\/house-bill\/909\/text\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Moms Matter Act<\/a>,&#8221; that would expand the perinatal mental and behavioral health workforce.<\/p>\n<p>But the maternal health workforce needs to grow even beyond behavioral health specialists, as there are currently more than 1,000 counties in the country that lack a qualified obstetric provider, said Underwood.<\/p>\n<p>Another bill in her package, &#8220;The Perinatal Workforce Act&#8221; would expand and diversify the number of obstetrician-gynecologists, nurse midwives, doulas, and lactation consultants in the country.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You shouldn&#8217;t have to live in a city or a prosperous suburb. You should be able to live wherever you choose to be in our country and have access to exceptional providers and have provider choice,&#8221; said Underwood.<\/p>\n<p>This is especially important for people of color, she said, because the scientific data show that when there is congruence  &#8212;  when a patient has the option of choosing a provider with the same background or who speaks the same language  &#8212;  outcomes are better.<\/p>\n<p>Underwood said she didn&#8217;t want anyone to leave the summit thinking that policymakers don&#8217;t know how to fix maternal health.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We know exactly what to do. It&#8217;s evidence-based, we know how much it costs, and when we do these things it doesn&#8217;t just save Black moms, it helps all moms &#8230; and improves the quality of care for every birthing person in this country,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/clf1.medpagetoday.com\/media\/images\/author\/shannonFirth_188.jpg\" alt=\"author['full_name']\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" previous-src=\"https:\/\/clf1.medpagetoday.com\/media\/images\/author\/shannonFirth_188.jpg\">\n                            <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/people\/sf6185\/shannon-firth\">Shannon Firth<\/a> has been reporting on health policy as MedPage Today&#8217;s Washington correspondent since 2014. She is also a member of the site&#8217;s Enterprise &#038; Investigative Reporting team.  <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/shannonfirth\">Follow <span><\/span><\/a>  <\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/obgyn\/generalobgyn\/103248\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><br \/>\n Samatha Howe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OB\/Gyn &gt; General OB\/GYN \u2014 Black women are three times more likely to die in childbirth by Shannon Firth, Washington Correspondent, MedPage Today February 23, 2023 The head of the Centers for Medicare &amp; Medicaid Services (CMS) and co-chair of the House&#8217;s Black Maternal Health Caucus shared strategies for addressing disparities in maternal health during<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":611547,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3998,39194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-611546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-disparities","category-maternal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}