Fundraising for MAMA: Missoula, Montana

Here is the first in a series of stories about Mothers and Midwives in Action across the country. We hope these stories can inspire you to hold an event in your own community!

Missoula, Montana (population 60,000) is in the middle of the northern Rocky Mountains and the home of an active home birth community. This last May I hosted a public talk on on health reform, maternity care and Certified Professional Midwives and asked for volunteers to participate in local organizing. Five people signed up. We have met 3 times so far to generate ideas for a political action/fundraising event in our community. All volunteers are recipients of midwifery care for their combined 13 home births. 

The first meeting was an inspirational discussion about how the MAMA Campaign was trying to protect the right to have a birth at home with a Certified Professional Midwife by including CPMs in national health reform. The consensus of the group was to raise money to support the MAMA Campaign as well as engage in lobbying efforts with our state’s senior senator, Max Baucus, head of the Senate Finance committee. 

As a political action we decided to plan and sponsor an informal parade of mothers, dads, babies, children and supporters. The participants will meet with signs, costumes, props, etc. to march over the Higgins Ave. bridge into downtown and end at Senator Max Baucus’ local office. We will present Senator Baucus with a petition signed by all parade participants. The petition will state our support for Certified Professional Midwives to be named in the Medicaid portion of the Senate health reform bill. 

The next day will be a silent auction/pizza party to raise money and support the MAMA Campaign. We are in the process of finding a place for the auction and getting auction items donated. One person is the advertising genie, two are auction item genies, one person is the location captain and I am the overseer/blogger. Today, one business owner donated an auction item and stated, “I am still paying out of pocket for a hospital birth that cost $11,000 since I did not have insurance. I am all for this reform!”

Sensible Solutions to Better Health Care

If you haven't read it already, please review Atul Gawande's op-ed piece in the August 12th edition of the NYTimes. In his first three paragraphs, Gawande summarize's our nation's rhetorical dilemna and brings us to the priority focal point: "to change how [health] care is delivered so that it is both less expensive and more effective".
Since midwifery from Certified Professional Midwives has been proven to be both less expensive and more effective in the delivery of babies with less interventions, we at the MAMA Campaign couldn't agree more.

10 Steps to Better Health Care

By ATUL GAWANDE, DONALD BERWICK, ELLIOTT FISHER and MARK McCLELLAN Published: August 12, 2009

We have reached a sobering point in our national health-reform debate. Americans have recognized that our health system is bankrupting us and that we have dealt with this by letting the system price more and more people out of health care. So we are trying to decide if we are willing to change — willing to ensure that everyone can have coverage. That means banishing the phrase “pre-existing condition.” It also means finding ways to pay for coverage for those who can’t afford it without help.

Both of these steps stir heated argument, not to mention lobbyists’ hearts. But what creates the deepest unease is considering what we will have to do about the system’s exploding costs if pushing more people out is no longer an option. We have really discussed only two options: raising taxes or rationing care. The public is understandably alarmed.

There is a far more desirable alternative: to change how care is delivered so that it is both less expensive and more effective. But there is widespread skepticism about whether that is possible.

Click to read more ...

On the path with the MAMA Campaign

“Sometimes the most direct route to your heart’s desire is a path full of twists and turns…” (Anonymous)

Well, friends and supporters of the Mothers and Midwives in Action (MAMA) Campaign—we are certainly on a road full of twists and turns…We are also moving fast and keeping many apples in the air to ensure that the path is an upward, successful climb.

Health care reform action has EXPLODED this week in Washington, D.C. Support for federal recognition of Certified Professional Midwives has been building and very much a part of the action this week. Even as we write to you all today, analysis of the status of amendments in the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee is neither complete nor final.

The House of Representatives has adjourned for the August recess and the Senate will adjourn at the end of next week. Lots of outreach to Congress members can happen during the August recess and that will be our focus. What is clear is that our work together will continue throughout the August recess and into Congressional debates in September. Fasten your seatbelts, sound the alarm, we are all in this TOGETHER!

For more about the process of overall health care reform in Congress, visit http://www.uhcan.org/.

NEWS of SUPPORT: MAMA is thrilled to receive full recognition and support from major national organizations this week:

National Women's Law Center
Our Bodies Ourselves
National Women's Health Network
Raising Women's Voices
Childbirth Connection
Coalition for Improving Maternity Services (CIMS)

FINANCIAL NEWS: MAMA is nearing the halfway mark in raising the minimum money essential for the success of our Campaign. We have roughly $70,000 in hand or pledged. ALERT! We must stay on our pace of raising $10,000 a week for the rest of the Congressional session in order to complete our goal. To ensure skilled help in Washington DC and well-organized coordination of our country-wide support, we must continue to call out to all supporters for help with this financial reality. Thanks to all of you who have already donated. Do send our message far and wide to your friend and family networks!

For more reasons to donate, watch this! Hear what moms, dads and grandparents across the country have to say about CPMs and choices in childbirth. Please watch this inspiring video and send it on to friends, family and clients.


NETWORKING NEWS: Join us on Facebook and Twitter!
Our network is growing and with your help we can reach more supporters to our cause. Please invite your Facebook Friends to join the MAMA Campaign Facebook Group. Visit our group and click on the "Invite your Friends" link on our page. You will be able to send a message to all of your Facebook friends asking them to join the MAMA Campaign!





Subscribe to the MAMA Grapevine—MAMA’s blog-- to get the latest updates on the MAMA Campaign, articles on Health Care Reform, and personal stories about how CPMs can be an integral part of quality maternity care. Link our blog to your Facebook, Twitter, and other networking site profiles with a simple click of the "share" button at the top and bottom of the page. 

Please help us help you! Support the MAMA Campaign TODAY

HEARTFELT THANKS FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT!  

"Where's the birth plan?"

Check out Jennifer Block's post about maternity care and health care reform on RH Reality Check! http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/07/29/wheres-the-birth-plan

Here's a highlight:

A new economic analysis forecasts savings of $9.1 billion per year if 10 percent of women planned to deliver out of hospital with midwives. (Right now, just one percent do). If America is serious about reform, midwifery advocates are saying, "Hey, how about us?"

You can help the MAMA Campaign continue efforts to lobby Congress to include CPMs, experts in out of hospital birth, as part of the list of federally recognized practitioners reimbursed by Medicaid.

Have any of you had hospital AND home deliveries? How'd the costs compare?

Inaction is not an option.

“Inaction is not an option.”
-- President Obama regarding health care reform in a speech last week.

There is ACTION everywhere in all directions on health care these days... Every day special interest groups spend a staggering $1.4 million lobbying Congress to shut down the health care reform effort. How many are lobbying to maintain the status quo in maternity care? How many are big medicine lobbyists? Did you know the insurance industry unveiled a 7-figure marketing campaign to protect their bottom lines? We are like actors in an epic story—David and Goliath

We must answer this challenge:
Support the MAMA Campaign!

The pace of policy and debate is accelerating in Washington DC, and the ACNM has increased its opposition to our Campaign. And, MAMA marches on! We continue to be applauded on the Hill for the progress we are making. We successfully met with agencies responsible for fiscal reports for Congressional initiatives and Medicaid programs. The pace of our DC visits continues unabated—we seek to solidify early support and attain new Congressional supporters.

And now, we must ramp up our Campaign to yet another notch in order to achieve Medicaid coverage for all Certified Professional Midwives.

Please help us help you! Support the MAMA Campaign TODAY—we must raise $10,000 a week to ensure the Campaign achieves its goal!

Your donation supports increased access to providers for low income women. Are you a midwife? A mother? A father? A childbearing woman? A grandparent? A midwife supporter or a person who values choices in childbirth services? We need you!

Already donated?
THANK YOU! Here’s what else you can do!

Here is what moms, dads and grandparents across the country have to say about CPMs and choices in childbirth. (Scroll down on our home page to view our new video.)

Forward this video to all your friends and colleagues and encourage them to sign up with the MAMA Campaign (www.mamacampaign.org )

NEWSFLASH: MAMA is on Facebook and on Twitter—join us here:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/MAMAcampaign
The facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=237604910202&ref=ts

Click HERE for the link so you can tell your Congress members that you value CPM services for maternity care and why CPMs need to be added to the list of Medicaid providers. And a giant THANK YOU to all of you who’ve already written your Congress members!

THANKS FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT!