LA Times says “Midwives Deliver”
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| This image by Susan Tibbles accompanied Jennifer Block’s Op-Ed about midwives. |
On Christmas Eve, Pushed author Jennifer Block opined in the LA Times that homebirth and Certified Professional Midwives must be key elements of Obama’s healthcare reform strategy. Read the article or more cool stuff on Jennifer’s blog, PushedBirth.
She highlights some pretty startling facts: Not only is childbirth the most common reason for a hospital stay — more than 4 million American women give birth each year — it costs the country far more than any other health condition. Six of the 15 most frequent hospital procedures billed to private insurers and Medicaid are maternity-related. The nation’s maternity bill totaled $86 billion in 2006, nearly half of which was picked up by taxpayers.
Anyone know the average cost of a birth in Charlottesville?
5 comments
My hospital bill (UVa) came to about $10,000 between the bills for me and my daughter. All but $200 was billed to insurance. I had no interventions, just showed up and pushed the baby out.
It is always so frustrating to see government systems opting for expensive options that are actually less beneficial than their less expensive counterparts. I remember noting the irony around the birth of my first child. I paid a couple thousand dollar fee for midwifery/homebirth care, even though, as an income-free single parent, I would have been eligible for a free hospital birth through state-funded programs.
There are similar issues with breastfeeding. I remember reading some statistics in Mothering Magazine about how much money we could save if programs like WIC focused on promoting breastfeeding instead of providing free formula. Sending single moms to work as early and often as possible and paying to feed their babies formula (not to mention the subsequent increased medical costs…), just doesn’t seem like a very healthy option for moms and babies, or the government budget.
I’ve been hoping that Obama will be open to considering these sorts of common sense and cost effective approaches to healthcare–glad Ms. Block is putting it out there.
However open Obama may be, he will have to face the established beaurocracy or “medical industrial complex”, as I’ve heard it called. There are alot of palms getting greased in the name of providing care to underpriveleged women.
I was asked by the director of Medicaid services for pregant woman how CPMs could care for women on Medicaid since most of them are “high-risk”. It seems that one of the risk factors for complications in childbirth is low socio-economic status. What a terrible feedback loop! We’ll treat you as high-risk because you have no money for food and work 2 jobs to pay the rent…then low and behold our (lack of) treatment becomes necessary. I was very pleased that Virginia DMAS (Medicaid/FAMIS) chose to endorse CPMs as providers. They agreed with my answer… that the midwives model of individualized, education based, preventative care is a good way to lower risk in birth and promote good healthy starts for moms and babies.
Brynne, I’m enjoying reading your perspectives on this–Hannah (my stepdaughter’s mom) gave me the link for a pregnant friend, but I’m finding these issues relevant to most people’s lives, whether we’re directly involved in the birth process or not. There are parallels across the board when it comes to socioeconomic status and all these seemingly counter-intuitive government subsidies. When I was in AmeriCorps, I was paid at the poverty level, so I was eligible for food stamps (a whole other discussion in itself). My “Independence Card” was only accepted at large chains, which meant I could shop at places like Whole Foods if I wanted organic food, but it meant spending more of my allotted monthly amount, and for the cheaper, better-quality local produce and dairy at the farmers’ market, I still had to pay out of pocket.
Even so, I admittedly came from a place of privilege, and at least I had the luxury of time in which to make food from scratch to save money. In the adult literacy program where I was working, the learners would often bring in McDonald’s coupons or a box of Hostess donuts for the rest of their class. They had a great sense of community and generosity among friends, but it they seemed to have a very specific concept of what “people like them” (low-income, undereducated, minority adults with long work days and little time to spend cooking) could afford.
Brynne’s point about greasing palms is a significant one. As long as the pharmaceutical companies, Nestle and Kraft Foods can maintain their huge government lobbying presence and woo lawmakers with skewed statistics and fancy lunches, then the most accessible and affordable pregnancy care and subsidized nutrition will be in the form of hospital births, Carnation formula and convenience foods. It requires less effort on the parts of some (and it’s more profitable) to keep people dependent on industrialized goods and services than it would to educate and empower them to take advantage of their own abilities (not to mention the services of local, community-invested professionals).
I’m not sure how I feel yet about the new administration’s relationship with corporations. There was a lot of talk during the campaign about moving away from a government of corporate lobbyists, but it’s too soon for me to tell whether they’ll make good on all of that. It’s important that advocates for “alternative” (i.e. simpler, more localized) systems continue to make their voices heard.
After watching the inauguration…2 million people inspired enough to stand in 30 degree weather to be part of history…I think that now is the time to become an idealist. Maria hits on the critical problem with healthcare in America…it is run by corporations whose job is to make a profit. Profit and wellness are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but it will take a lot of visioning to make a real change.
The Big Push for Midwives Campaign, http://www.thebigpushformidwives.org, is working to unify the voice of advocates for maternity care reform in an effort to get the Obama administration’s attention. Check them out!
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