Support the Improvements in Global MOMS Act

Urge the United States House of Representatives, the United States Senate, and President Obama to pass the Improvements in Global Maternal and newborn health Outcomes while Maximizing Successes Act a.k.a. Improvements in Global MOMS Act (H.R.5268).

What is the Improvements in Global MOMS Act?

The Improvements in Global MOMS Act (H.R.5268), sponsored by U.S. Representative Lois Capps (D-CA 23), will support activities that help expand access to better quality maternal health services, remove barriers to such services, and ensure that they meet international human rights standards.

Under the Improvements in Global MOMS Act (H.R.5268), it would Amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to authorize the President to furnish assistance to reduce mortality and improve maternal health and the health of newborns in developing countries, including HIV/AIDS prevention programs.
It also directs the President to implement a comprehensive strategy as part of the Global Health Initiative to reduce mortality and improve the health of mothers and newborns in developing countries.

The Problem

Hundreds of thousands of women die each year from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Ninety-nine percent of these deaths occur in the developing world and the vast majority of these are preventable.   

For every maternal death, approximately 20 women--or 10,000,000 women per year--suffer complications with severe consequences, including pregnancy-related injuries such as fistula, uterine prolapse, infections, diseases, and disabilities. The number one cause of maternal deaths is hemorrhage. Other primary causes of maternal death include sepsis, unsafe abortion, hypertensive disorder, and prolonged or obstructed labor. 

According to Amnesty International USA, the vast majority of these deaths are unnecessary and preventable, caused by a lack of access to timely, quality health care. In many developing countries, including fragile states and countries affected by conflict, lack of access to quality health care facilities, health services, and trained providers results in deaths for mothers, newborns, and children--the majority of births in Africa take place without a skilled attendant present, increasing the risk of death or disability for both mother and newborn.

Also an estimated 8,800,000 children under the age of 5 die each year. Over 40 percent of these die in the first month of life. And mortality rates are increasing for those born to young mothers or where pregnancies are less than a year apart.  Globally, 215,000,000 women would like to delay or end childbearing, but do not have access to modern contraceptives.

In addition, pregnancy is the leading cause of death for young women aged 15 to 19 worldwide. Compared to girls in their twenties, girls aged 15 to 19 are twice as likely, and girls under 15 five times as likely, to die in childbirth, and mortality and morbidity rates are also higher among infants born to young mothers.

According to WHO, women that have undergone female genital mutilation are significantly more likely than those who have not undergone female genital mutilation to experience serious postpartum health problems, and children born to mothers who have undergone female genital mutilation face higher death rates immediately after birth.

Violent acts against pregnant women can lead to poor health outcomes, including preterm labor, preterm delivery, miscarriage, and stillbirths, and even maternal deaths, and the risk for maternal mortality is 3 times as high for abused mothers.

According to the Director of National Intelligence's 2009 Annual Threat Assessment, widespread poor maternal and child health and malnutrition has the potential to weaken central governments and empower non-state actors, including terrorist and paramilitary groups.

The Solution

If family planning and maternal and newborn services were provided simultaneously, the costs of these services would decline by $1,500,000,000 compared with investing in maternal and newborn care alone--this dual investment would result in a 70 percent decline in maternal deaths and 44 percent decline in newborn deaths.

By providing modern contraceptives it would fully addressing the need of the 215,000,000 women globally, who would like to delay or end childbearing, but would also prevent an additional 53,000,000 unintended pregnancies each year and reduce maternal deaths due to unsafe abortion by 82 percent.
The spacing of births has a powerful impact on a child's chances of survival. Children born less than 2 years after the previous birth are about 2.5 times more likely to die before age 5 than children born 3 to 5 years after the previous birth.

What would the Improvements in Global MOMS Act?

Under the Improvements in Global MOMS Act (H.R.5268), in addition to authorizing the President to furnish assistance to reduce mortality and improve maternal health and the health of newborns in developing countries, the following assistance will be provided;

The assistance will be  carried out through private and voluntary organizations, including community and faith-based organizations, and relevant international and multilateral organizations, including the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Children's Fund, and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations, that demonstrate effectiveness and commitment to improving the health and rights of mothers, newborns, and children;

1.) Assistance will be provided through activities to expand access and improve quality of maternal health services, including;

(A) comprehensive voluntary family planning services, integrated into antenatal and postnatal care and in child health services, to support women and men in making informed decisions and having timely, intended, well-spaced pregnancies and to help women with preexisting conditions avoid high-risk, unintended pregnancies;

(B) birth preparedness through the provision of quality antenatal care, including- (i) educating women and families about danger signs to look for, potential complications during pregnancy and childbirth, and where to access care; (ii) providing counseling about hygiene, nutrition, and the care and feeding of babies; (iii) helping women and families develop a birth plan that includes skilled delivery care and a transport plan in case of emergencies; (iv) screening for complications including blood pressure screenings; (v) diagnosis and treatment of existing conditions, such as HIV/AIDS, syphilis, malaria, and tuberculosis, and ensuring that women are provided with, or referred to, appropriate care and treatment for those conditions; (vi) ensuring that women infected with HIV are provided mother-to-child transmission prevention services, including access to voluntary family planning, medications to prevent such transmission, and counseling on infant feeding; and (vii) making vaccines, micronutrients, and treatment for infections and parasites available and accessible;

(C) skilled delivery care, include-- (i) the presence of an accredited health professional, such as midwife, doctor, or nurse, who has been educated and trained to proficiency in the skills needed to manage normal or uncomplicated pregnancies, childbirth, and the immediate postnatal period, and in the identification, management, or referral of complications in women and newborns, including active management of the third stage of labor; and (ii) an enabling environment that includes access to a referral system, communication and transport, drugs and supplies, and equipment appropriate for a normal delivery;

(D) quality emergency obstetric care, including --(i) increasing the technical competence of health care providers; (ii) increasing the essential supplies and equipment including fluids, blood products, and drugs to treat complications such as infection, bleeding, and hypertension; (iii) providing the information and counseling for the client, including quality of client-provider interaction; (iv) ensuring continuity of comprehensive, acceptable care, referrals and followup; and (v) access to cesarean section when necessary;

(E) postpartum care and support, including --(i) activities to promote immediate exclusive breastfeeding (ii) activities to promote essential care of newborns; (iii) activities to treat, repair, and provide followup services for injuries resulting from pregnancy and childbirth, including fistula; and (iv) family planning counseling and service provision; and

(F) postabortion care, including--(i) emergency treatment of complications of unsafe abortion; (ii) family planning counseling and services; and (iii) linkages to other reproductive health services;

(G) working with communities and health care providers to identify and remove barriers to maternal health care services, including barriers such as financial, sociocultural, transportation, gender discrimination, and stigma based on preexisting health concerns, and ensure that those services are based in individual human rights, as recognized by international agreements and instruments;

(H) comprehensive sexuality education programs and services for youth that provide adolescents with information, skills, and materials necessary to postpone childbearing;

(I) promotion of activities that focus on empowering women and girls and engaging men and boys at the individual, household, and community levels to improve the health outcomes of women, newborns, and children including education and awareness programs about gender-based violence, the health risks of female genital mutilation, and shared responsibility for and benefits of family planning.  Activities to;

- improve essential newborn care and treatment, including educating families and communities about proper antenatal and skilled delivery care, tetanus toxoid immunization during pregnancy, immediate and exclusive breastfeeding, keeping the newborn warm, such as by providing skin-to-skin care, keeping the cord clean, resuscitation of newborns who are not breathing properly, and treatment of infections;

-prevent and treat childhood illness, including early infant diagnosis of HIV infection and increasing access to appropriate prevention and treatment for diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria, HIV/AIDS, and other life-threatening childhood illnesses;

-improve child and maternal nutrition, including the delivery of iron, zinc, vitamin A, iodine, and other key micronutrients, the promotion of breastfeeding and appropriate complementary feeding, and the utilization of Ready to Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTF) that, to the extent practicable, are developed, purchased, or produced in the country or region that they are utilized;

-strengthen the delivery of immunization services, including efforts to strengthen routine immunization, introduce new vaccines for diseases such as rotavirus and pneuomcoccal disease, and eliminate polio;

-improve household-level behavior related to safe water, hygiene, safe and hygienic food preparation and storage, exposure to indoor smoke, and environmental toxins such as lead;

-improve capacity for health governance, health finance, and the health workforce, including in the private sector, and support for training clinicians, nurses, technicians, sanitation and public health workers, community-based health workers, midwives, birth attendants, peer educators, volunteers, and private sector enterprises to provide integrated health services and referrals that meet the needs of patients across a continuum of care;

-address antimicrobial resistance in treating maternal health infections;

-establish and support management of host country institutions' information systems and the development and use of tools and models to collect, analyze, and disseminate information related to maternal and newborn health;

-develop and conduct needs assessments, baseline studies, targeted evaluations, or other information-gathering efforts for the design, monitoring, and evaluation of maternal and newborn health efforts, including-- (A) studying the availability and effects of critical medicines, particularly those of importance in the developing world, on pregnant women and newborns; (B) collection, evaluation, and use of data on the medical and socioeconomic factors that led to a maternal or newborn death or `near miss' at the community and health facility levels; and (C) sociocultural barriers, influencers, and enhancers of health and nutrition behaviors;

-integrate and coordinate assistance provided under this section with existing health programs for-- (A) the prevention of the transmission of HIV from mother to child and other HIV/AIDS prevention, care, treatment, and counseling activities; (B) malaria; (C) tuberculosis; (D) family planning and reproductive health; (E) counseling for survivors of sexual- and gender-based violence; (F) neglected tropical diseases; and (G) nutrition;

-improve orphan care services and to support innovative orphan and vulnerable children programs;

-end harmful traditional practices including female genital mutilation and child marriage;

-train health care providers to prevent, identify, and manage cases of gender-based violence as part of family planning and maternal and newborn health services;

-support mental health care and provide psychosocial support;

-improve access to clean water and improved sanitation through community-based hygiene education programs, access to household- and community-level water purification tools and devices, and latrine construction; and

-prevent, control, and in some cases eliminate neglected tropical diseases for both newborns and mothers.

What can you do to get the Improvements in Global MOMS Act passed?

Please write to and/or call your U.S. Representatives and Senators and President Obama tell them to pass the Improvements in Global MOMS Act (H.R.5268). Also ask your U.S. Representatives and Senators to co-sponsor the Improvements in Global MOMS Act.
 
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