Dear Governor Hogan, 

I am writing to ask that you help pregnant women afford home births during this pandemic.

In light of the facts that

(i) new studies are suggesting that infants may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of Covid-19*,

(ii) hospitals might soon be overrun with disease,

(iii) hospitals may run out of available beds and healthy staff, and

(iv) you have strongly encouraged social distancing/have placed a prohibition on gatherings of more than 50 people,

is there anything that you could do to financially assist pregnant women seeking home births? Perhaps, for instance, you could send pregnant women direct cash payments to wholly or partially cover costs or require insurance companies to provide coverage for home births.

By giving women the ability to afford this option, we can help divert pregnant women/visitors away from hospitals. Keeping healthy people out of hospitals may reduce the number of community acquired transmissions and would alleviate some of the staffing/supply/bed space burden being put on hospitals in this crisis. Most home births cost about $6k-8k out of pocket. This cost burden is more than many families can afford right now in the face of rising levels of unemployment.

Please help us keep Maryland safe! 

*https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/early/2020/03/16/peds.2020-0702.full.pdf 

*https://www.koaa.com/infant-among-new-coronavirus-cases-in-kentucky-study-finds-infants-to-be-particularly-vulnerable