One way that State Representatives and State Senators in the Massachusetts legislature show support for policies is through cosponsorships. Once a bill or budget amendment is filed, legislators can sign on to cosponsor it. Check out our scorecard. Some items are now closed for cosponsorship (like House budget amendments for this year), but your legislators can still sign on to cosponsor bills if they haven’t already.
Read MoreIn May, the Massachusetts Senate passed a budget that included unprecedented state funding for birth centers. Senator Liz Miranda’s amendment passed unanimously to provide $1M for the development and operation of nonprofit freestanding birth centers like Neighborhood Birth Center and other community based maternal health organizations. In addition, $150K was allocated to Seven Sisters Birth Center to support their doula program. In August, Governor Maura Healey signed the budget into law.
Read MoreFollow us on Instagram @baystatebirth and check out our Reels to see the recordings of our Live conversations from Black Maternal Health Week.
A conversation with State Senator Liz Miranda
A conversation with State Representative Brandy Fluker Oakley
Discussion of the new art exhibit honoring the foremothers of gynecology with Lilly Marcelin of Resilient Sisterhood Project
Tiffany Vassell, a labor and delivery nurse, left a Boston hospital two days early after giving birth to her son seven months ago, exhausted by what she described as inadequate care that forced the Black maternal health advocate to relentlessly protect her and her baby’s wellbeing.
As her unborn child went into distress for 10 minutes, Vassell herself watched the heart rate monitor, instructing a nurse to not increase a medication used to induce contractions.
And Vassell halted a frenzied recommendation about an emergency C-section, a procedure she later had to undergo to deliver her 10-pound baby, as she lobbied for a “very controlled atmosphere” to reduce the likelihood of infection. Vassell later had to request stronger painkillers — rather than the Motrin she was given — and heating pads as she complained of “excruciating pain” following the abdominal surgery.
Throughout her pregnancy, Vassell managed to make decisions for herself, backed by a maternal care team that extended well beyond the hospital to the home birth midwife and doula she’d hired out-of-pocket.
Read MoreA new editorial in the Boston Globe calls on the legislature to license certified professional midwives and state regulators to update birth center regulations.
Massachusetts politicians like to hold the Bay State up as a mecca of reproductive rights. Yet while pregnant people can choose whether to carry a baby to term, they have less choice in where to deliver that baby.
While Massachusetts has world-class hospitals — and 99 percent of births occur in a hospital — there is only one birth center, Seven Sisters in Northampton. The North Shore Birth Center, run by Beverly Hospital, closed in December, while the Cambridge Health Alliance-affiliated Cambridge Birth Center closed when COVID-19 hit and never reopened. With nearly 400 birth centers nationally, Massachusetts’ single birth center makes the state an outlier. It is a problem for a state that prides itself on high-quality care but struggles with high health care costs…
There are steps Massachusetts policy makers should take to make birth centers more financially viable. The Department of Public Health should rewrite its regulations to better suit the care modern birth centers provide. The Legislature should allow the licensing of certified professional midwives, a class of childbirth professionals who could expand the workforce.
Read MoreYou may know the story of Elizabeth Freeman (1742-1829), who helped end slavery in Massachusetts when she sued for her freedom under the new state constitution. Did you know that Elizabeth "Mum Bett" Freeman was also a prominent and respected MIDWIFE in Berkshire county? Read more about Elizabeth Freeman.
On the Black History of midwifery in the United States:
“One of the darkest moments in US history was the systematic eradication of the African American midwife from her community, resulting in a legacy of birth injustices.” - Shafia Monroe, Boston native and Queen of the Midwifery Movement
New legislation to expand access to midwives, home birth, and birth centers has been filed in Massachusetts for the 2023-2024 legislative session.
Everyone in Massachusetts should be able to choose where they give birth and the type of maternity care that is most appropriate for their needs. Unfortunately, our state currently lags the nation when it comes to access to midwives, birth centers, home birth, and integration of care -- models that can reverse our rising maternal mortality and growing racial inequities in birth outcomes. Together, these priority bills will propel Massachusetts to a position of leadership in healthy, equitable access to maternity care and birthing choices. Take action now.
Read MoreThere is just 1 birth center left in Massachusetts. What happened? What can we do about it?
Commonwealth Magazine “Opinion: Take pregnant people seriously, support birth centers. Let science in to address failing maternity system.” by Cristina Alonso (Jan 1, 2023)
Boston Globe “Opinion: Birth centers offer options. Why is there only one left in Massachusetts? With the closing of the North Shore Birth Center and the stalled reopening of the Cambridge Birth Center, it seems that midwifery care is often seen as dispensable.” by Nashira Baril, Katherine Gergen Barnett, and Mallika Sabharwal (Dec 30, 2022)
Commonwealth Magazine “Hoping to deliver at a Massachusetts birth center? Good luck. Planned closure of North Shore facility will leave just one birthing center in the state.” by Shira Schoenberg (Nov 20, 2022)
The formal Massachusetts legislative session which began January 2021, ended the morning of August 1, 2022 without the passage of key midwifery and maternal health legislation. The Health Care Financing Committee sent the Out-of-Hospital Birth Access and Safety Act, An Act to Expand Access to Nurse-Midwifery, and 7 other maternal health bills to study in early June, effectively killing the bills with no reason given and no vote. Though there were multiple attempts to resurrect the midwifery legislation be attaching them as amendments to other bills, none were successful.
Read MoreOn July 20, hundreds of community members gathered to testify at a Department of Public Health Hearing in an effort to stop the planned closure of North Shore Birth Center by Beth Israel Lahey Health. “Everyone deserves to have the choice of where they give birth. Unfortunately, in Massachusetts, too few of us do have that choice.”
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