I have just posted our submission, for The Transparency in Maternity Care Project: The Birth Survey, an initiative of the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services (CIMS). We welcome any feedback!
I am very invested in the future of the Birth Survey Project. I have a Master's in Nonprofit Administration and am a birth and postpartum doula. I think this is a smart grassroots approach to making a real difference in the lives of women and their families.
Transparency is a huge problem in maternity care in the U.S. With the CDC's report of an increase in the c-section rate another 2% last year, it is clear that something has to be done to stop this trend. This initiative has the potential to be the "Consumer Reports" of maternity care and give families the information they need to make informed decisions. I am very excited to see the positive impact this project will make!
As a chapter leader for BirthNetwork National, I find that The Birth Survey gives our group a cause around which to rally, and a way to reach out to women in the community. It answers a need for information that cannot be found elsewhere, and gives many people a way to positively influence health care options in their own locale. Transparency is vital to improving healthcare, and this project focuses on transparency in maternity care. It does so in a way that engages many people and strives to improve the system by allowing the market to work to make change.
The Birth Survey is one of the most accurate ways of collecting information regarding childbirth experiences because the survey's are completed by the moms. Although some hospitals within the US are getting better at being transparent regarding their procedures, advese events and actual statistics... most are not. Legislation needs to be put through in evey state... so that every hospital and health care provider will be mandated to make this information public. The birth survey is one way of getting out this information.
The Birth Survey gives people more of what we need to make informed choices about birth. It is a great tool to use if someone is moving to a new area and needs to know statistics on hospitals. It is also personal. It is possible that this is the first time a woman is telling her birth story - a highly important aspect in the entire process for the mother. I love the Birth Survey and where it is helping to take our movement for transparency in maternity services.
Women in the US sorely need the information that The Birth Survey provides. Pregnant women are told "choose the provider and birth facility that best meet your needs" but then they have no place to turn to find information to make that choice. Since providers and birth facilities are generally unwilling to provide information about themselves, this information must come from the consumers who have used their services, and from whatever data each state's department of health currently collects about them. The Birth Survey is ambitious in its scope, and vast in its potential impact on birthing women and their families. Transparency works and will have tremendous positive effects on maternity care in the US.
Maternity care in America is in crisis. We spend more money than any other country yet our maternal morbidity is the worst in the industrialized world. Countless numbers of women walk into the care of providers with no idea that they will be subject to contra-indicated and routine interventions that are harmful and not evidenced based. They are being told that their bodies are dysfunctional and require high tech and high dollar procedures. Over 30% will leave the hospital having had major abdominal surgery. The sad thing is that due to a total absence of transparency, women have little information on how to avoid this kind of treatment. The Birth Survey will contrast the providers and facilities that provide humane, effective, family centered maternity care with those that practice expensive, profit driven, non-evidence based, "doctor friendly" medicine. The information gleaned from this project is vital to turning the tide of the soaring epidemic of c-sections, iatrogenic prematurity and maternal morbidity in America. The benefactors will not only be American women, but those that live in that countries that emulate our broken system.
I completely support the work that CIMS is doing to support birth care and delivery in the US. I have a Masters in Public Health and feel whole heartedly that this information should be public knowledge. With this sort of information, mothers, families and physicians, hospitals can make more informed choices about the care that they recieve and the care that they deliver. Please support this initative, it is one that could substantially impact our maternity care here in the United States. Thank you!
The Birth Survey has the potential to make an enormous impact on maternity care in our country! It allows each and every woman to make a difference by speaking out about her birth. Change MUST be made, and The Birth Survey will have a huge role in this!
It's good to see a show of support - always validating to have people agree with our passionate belief in the importance of this issue. I'd be interested to know how commenters feel that this project stacks up in terms of aligning with the "nudge" concept. In my conversations with the Project leaders, we really had a "Eureka" moment in terms of recognizing that The Birth Survey and the "nudge" concept seem to be a perfect fit. Without restricting freedom of choice, The Birth Survey enables consumers to educate themselves, read the evidence for mother-friendly care, and then "nudges" them towards choosing the better choice without forcing their hand.
The Birth Survey is a start to the transparency and change we need in our maternity care system. Women can not make informed choices about providers and facilities if they have no information available to them. Furthermore, our maternity care should be evidence based not driven by factors unrelated. The time as come for The Birth Survey!
In my community many women are either promised that any thing they want will be done an dthen find out when they are in the hospital that it won't happen the way they desire, "because hospital policy doesn't allow that" (be it intermittent auscultation, or being up in the shower during labor, or numerous other low tech, high touch care birth pracitices) or they find out in the final month or two that their physician isn't open to low-tech birth care. In our community there is a reluctance on the part of maternity care providers to allow transfer of care during the third trimester.
Women need to know what they are getting into before they decide upon a care provider, and the maternity provider community needs some reason to change their practices. Numerous studies have shown that transparency helps to change practice towards more evidence based care. And we need that desperately in the US.
----------
CNMMindy
People are very open-minded about new things…
as long as they're exactly like the old ones!
--Charles Kettering
The Birth Survey places an important responsibility in women's hands...that of being the critical consumer of health care. It also ascribes responsibility to health care providers seeking to ensure that their services are compassionate, thorough, and--above all--evidence-based. Transparency in health care is a movement whose time has come. The Birth Survey is one pivotal and innovative step toward making that happen.
Comments
I have just posted our submission, for The Transparency in Maternity Care Project: The Birth Survey, an initiative of the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services (CIMS). We welcome any feedback!
Leanne Gonzalez-Singer
Chair, Fundraising Committee
CIMS
----------
Take the Birth Survey! Log on to www.thebirthsurvey.com.
I am very invested in the future of the Birth Survey Project. I have a Master's in Nonprofit Administration and am a birth and postpartum doula. I think this is a smart grassroots approach to making a real difference in the lives of women and their families.
Transparency is a huge problem in maternity care in the U.S. With the CDC's report of an increase in the c-section rate another 2% last year, it is clear that something has to be done to stop this trend. This initiative has the potential to be the "Consumer Reports" of maternity care and give families the information they need to make informed decisions. I am very excited to see the positive impact this project will make!
As a chapter leader for BirthNetwork National, I find that The Birth Survey gives our group a cause around which to rally, and a way to reach out to women in the community. It answers a need for information that cannot be found elsewhere, and gives many people a way to positively influence health care options in their own locale. Transparency is vital to improving healthcare, and this project focuses on transparency in maternity care. It does so in a way that engages many people and strives to improve the system by allowing the market to work to make change.
The Birth Survey is one of the most accurate ways of collecting information regarding childbirth experiences because the survey's are completed by the moms. Although some hospitals within the US are getting better at being transparent regarding their procedures, advese events and actual statistics... most are not. Legislation needs to be put through in evey state... so that every hospital and health care provider will be mandated to make this information public. The birth survey is one way of getting out this information.
----------
Maddy Oden
The Birth Survey gives people more of what we need to make informed choices about birth. It is a great tool to use if someone is moving to a new area and needs to know statistics on hospitals. It is also personal. It is possible that this is the first time a woman is telling her birth story - a highly important aspect in the entire process for the mother. I love the Birth Survey and where it is helping to take our movement for transparency in maternity services.
Women in the US sorely need the information that The Birth Survey provides. Pregnant women are told "choose the provider and birth facility that best meet your needs" but then they have no place to turn to find information to make that choice. Since providers and birth facilities are generally unwilling to provide information about themselves, this information must come from the consumers who have used their services, and from whatever data each state's department of health currently collects about them. The Birth Survey is ambitious in its scope, and vast in its potential impact on birthing women and their families. Transparency works and will have tremendous positive effects on maternity care in the US.
Maternity care in America is in crisis. We spend more money than any other country yet our maternal morbidity is the worst in the industrialized world. Countless numbers of women walk into the care of providers with no idea that they will be subject to contra-indicated and routine interventions that are harmful and not evidenced based. They are being told that their bodies are dysfunctional and require high tech and high dollar procedures. Over 30% will leave the hospital having had major abdominal surgery. The sad thing is that due to a total absence of transparency, women have little information on how to avoid this kind of treatment. The Birth Survey will contrast the providers and facilities that provide humane, effective, family centered maternity care with those that practice expensive, profit driven, non-evidence based, "doctor friendly" medicine. The information gleaned from this project is vital to turning the tide of the soaring epidemic of c-sections, iatrogenic prematurity and maternal morbidity in America. The benefactors will not only be American women, but those that live in that countries that emulate our broken system.
I completely support the work that CIMS is doing to support birth care and delivery in the US. I have a Masters in Public Health and feel whole heartedly that this information should be public knowledge. With this sort of information, mothers, families and physicians, hospitals can make more informed choices about the care that they recieve and the care that they deliver. Please support this initative, it is one that could substantially impact our maternity care here in the United States. Thank you!
The Birth Survey has the potential to make an enormous impact on maternity care in our country! It allows each and every woman to make a difference by speaking out about her birth. Change MUST be made, and The Birth Survey will have a huge role in this!
It's good to see a show of support - always validating to have people agree with our passionate belief in the importance of this issue. I'd be interested to know how commenters feel that this project stacks up in terms of aligning with the "nudge" concept. In my conversations with the Project leaders, we really had a "Eureka" moment in terms of recognizing that The Birth Survey and the "nudge" concept seem to be a perfect fit. Without restricting freedom of choice, The Birth Survey enables consumers to educate themselves, read the evidence for mother-friendly care, and then "nudges" them towards choosing the better choice without forcing their hand.
Thanks all for your comments!
Leanne
----------
Take the Birth Survey! Log on to www.thebirthsurvey.com.
The Birth Survey is a start to the transparency and change we need in our maternity care system. Women can not make informed choices about providers and facilities if they have no information available to them. Furthermore, our maternity care should be evidence based not driven by factors unrelated. The time as come for The Birth Survey!
In my community many women are either promised that any thing they want will be done an dthen find out when they are in the hospital that it won't happen the way they desire, "because hospital policy doesn't allow that" (be it intermittent auscultation, or being up in the shower during labor, or numerous other low tech, high touch care birth pracitices) or they find out in the final month or two that their physician isn't open to low-tech birth care. In our community there is a reluctance on the part of maternity care providers to allow transfer of care during the third trimester.
Women need to know what they are getting into before they decide upon a care provider, and the maternity provider community needs some reason to change their practices. Numerous studies have shown that transparency helps to change practice towards more evidence based care. And we need that desperately in the US.
----------
CNMMindy
People are very open-minded about new things…
as long as they're exactly like the old ones!
--Charles Kettering
The Birth Survey places an important responsibility in women's hands...that of being the critical consumer of health care. It also ascribes responsibility to health care providers seeking to ensure that their services are compassionate, thorough, and--above all--evidence-based. Transparency in health care is a movement whose time has come. The Birth Survey is one pivotal and innovative step toward making that happen.
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