national association of certified professional midwives
NACPM eAlert
  March 29, 2013
Greetings!

 

Institute Of Medicine Proceedings Now Available Online

The IOM Committee on Research Issues in the Assessment of Birth Settings held a public workshop on March 6-7, 2013 to review updates to the 1982 IOM-NRC report Research Issues in the Assessment of Birth Settings.

The workshop featured invited presentations and discussions highlighting research findings that advance our understanding of the effects, on maternal labor, clinical and other birth procedures, and birth outcomes, of maternal care services in different types of birth settings, including conventional hospital labor and delivery wards, alternative birth settings that may be hospital-affiliated or free-standing, and home births. The workshop topics considered research on different organizational models of care delivery, workforce requirements, patient and provider satisfaction levels, and birth outcomes. The workshop also included topics that identify key data sets and relevant research literatures that may inform a future ad hoc consensus study to address these concerns.

Video recordings and presentation materials from the workshop are now live on the IOM website. Our very own Brynne Potter, CPM presented on Provider Perspectives: Midwives and Home Birth. Many from the CPM community were present in the audience, including Mary Lawlor, Executive Director of NACPM, and were able to ask questions and make comments on the presentations. These questions and comments are included in the proceedings, ensuring that a wide variety of perspectives are represented. NACPM encourages all CPMs to review these exciting materials and engage in the conversation!

  

AABC Awarded $5.35 Million in Federal Grant Funding

American Association of Birth Centers NACPM congratulates the American Association of Birth Centers on being awarded a $5.35 million four year grant by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation for the Strong Start for Mothers and Newborns Initiative to measure outcomes and costs from enhanced prenatal care in birth centers for women enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP who are at risk of having a preterm birth.

"AABC is honored to have been chosen as one of the Strong Start grant awardees. Freestanding Birth Centers have provided high quality care for mothers and babies for over 30 years. Birth centers can be a part of our national solution to improving our maternal infant outcomes," said Jill Alliman, Project Director for AABC's Strong Start project. Read more about AABC on their website at birthcenters.org."

Baby and mother hands AABC is one of 27 awardees nationally, and one of two that will test the birth center model of care to reduce preterm births and improve maternal infant outcomes while measuring cost effectiveness of care. More information is available on the Strong Start Initiative from the CMS Innovations Center.

University of Arkansas NORMES will provide data support to the Birth Center project, and will host the server for data collected from 11,000 Strong Start participants in birth center care over the three year grant course.
Center banner photo credit: Walter Zamojski