Last month the ACOG announced it’s partnership with Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM) join their efforts to help lower the maternal mortality rates in the US. According to the article, “the U.S. was one of eight countries where maternal death rates worsened between 2003 and 2013”.
The organization AIM is accepting applications for state awarded funds to reduce these poor outcomes.
Mark S. DeFrancesco, MD, President of ACOG says, “ACOG has long recognized the need to address maternal mortality in the United States, and our practice recommendations present a wide variety of tactics to improve obstetrical outcomes,”
The main focuses of this program are targeting childbirth complications such as severe hypertension, hemorrhage, venous thromboembolism and lowering the low-risk primary cesarean birth rates. On that note, and of much interest in the doula community is the statement put out by ACOG last year(2014) in which ACOG urged it’s constituents to utilize the services of birth doulas to help lower the primary cesarean rates.
Author: Aliza Juliette Bancoff
Aliza Juliette Bancoff is a well-known doula and doula trainer who has been providing doula services to families for over a decade. She is the founder of Main Line Doulas, a doula group providing doula support in the great Philadelphia area for the last decade, the International Doula Institute, which provides online doula training and lactation training and certification programs and the International Breastfeeding Institute which provides lactation training and certification. She is the co-founder of United Birth, a company devoted to increasing access to doulas across the country to make the perinatal time safer both physically and emotionally. “Every birthing person deserves access to quality doula support. And we are working to make that a reality across the country. The work we are doing to get doulas to every birthing person will decrease the black infant and maternal mortality rate significantly by 2030.” Says Bancoff. Aliza is known for her compassionate and empowering approach to doula work, and she has been featured in numerous media outlets, including United Nations Maternal Health Report, Parent Magazine, CafeMom, theBump and many more. Aliza's journey into doula work began when she gave birth to her first child and felt a strong calling...