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Midwifery Workforce Call to Action
Many would argue that the oldest profession is not prostitution, but in fact midwifery. And while we are taking strategic action to increase the ability of nurse-midwives to practice with full authority in this state, our workforce is unfortunately shrinking. Our numbers have decreased precipitously from 1,191 in 2011 to just 753 in 2019, and 48% of CNMs in this state are aged 55 or over. The challenges faced by our student midwives and educators are varied and complex, and CNMA is committed to addressing these through policy, advocacy, and innovative strategies to increase funding for education and support the growth of nurse-midwifery education programs.
But none of that will make a difference if our students don’t have your support: We need preceptors. Dozens of student applicants to the UCSF and CSUF midwifery programs are turned away each term simply because of the limited number of clinical sites and preceptors. And student midwives attending out-of-state schools face even greater challenges to clinical completion and graduation. Of course, all of these challenges have been made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, but this has been a chronic and persistent issue.
We need YOU. First, I urge you to become a preceptor now. If you work at a facility that does not allow student midwives to precept, please advocate for a change to your facility’s policies. No excuses. Second, if you know other midwives who are not yet precepting students, call on them to join us in this action. Finally, in the coming weeks we hope to form a committee to focus on this call to action and to work with our educational and health systems to grow our midwifery workforce. If you are interested in participating in this committee, please email me directly at parisbury@gmail.com.
The future of midwifery lies in your baby-catching hands.
Thank you,
Paris Maloof-Bury, CNM, IBCLC
President, California Nurse-Midwives Association
California Health Policy Updates
Implementation of SB 1237 in your Practice
The Health Policy and CNMA leadership team have been hard at work helping new practices, hospitals, and systems implement the new law that removed supervision from CNM practice. Do you have questions or concerns for your practice? Office Hours are back for March! You can sign up here for 40 minutes with the bill implementation leadership team. Please familiarize yourself with our SB 1237 Toolkit, which offers so much information that many of your questions might be answered there! More hours will be added during the course of the month. If nothing works for you and you'd still like to schedule a time, please contact advocacy@cnma.org. Thanks!
CNMA Legislative Action
CNMA has taken official support positions for the following bills:
SB 379 (Wiener) - Equitable and Inclusive UC Health Care Act – ensures that University of California Health System (UC Health) contracts with healthcare facilities that allow UC staff practicing in those facilities to provide a full range of healthcare services, including reproductive and gender-affirming care. UC Health has entered into healthcare facility contracts that subject UC providers to harmful non-clinical restrictions limiting the kinds of services they provide to patients. SB 379 ensures that, moving forward, UC Health healthcare facility contractors will allow UC providers to perform the full range of appropriate care.
AB 265 (Petrie-Norris) – removes the 80% of Medicare Cap on Medi-Cal lab rates and reduces or eliminates the practice of clawbacks
AB 366 (Rubio) Healthy Futures for Foster Youth – extends the infant supplement payments to expectant foster youth three months before the expected birth of the child; ensures foster youth have access to comprehensive sexual health education, rights, and services, and creates transparency through additional data reporting.
CNMA opposes the CalAIM waiver in the Governor’s budget proposals:
Along with MCH Access, ACOG, CALM, CFAM, and First 5 California, we signed on last year to formally oppose the CalAIM waiver in Governor's budget proposal that would mandate that citizen and lawfully present pregnant women in certain Medi-Cal eligibility groups to receive services from a managed care plan instead of in fee-for-service (FFS). We oppose because it segments the population based upon immigration status, may make it more difficult for women remaining in FFS to receive medically necessary care, mandatory plan enrollment may prevent some patients from receiving specialist care, and there are serious gaps in the plans’ provisionof CPSP’s required psychosocial or other SDOH benefits. You can read more here. If you'd like to oppose this proposal in the Assembly Budget Subcommittee #1 on March 16th, you can find forthcoming information for this hearing on their website.
Board of Registered Nursing Actions
The BRN Sunset Report can be viewed here and has been submitted to the legislature. We have reviewed the report and have submitted our findings of certain inaccuracies to the Assembly Business & Professions Committee.
National Health Policy Updates
National Government Affairs Updates now available at CNMA.org!
California’s representative to the ACNM National Government Affairs Committee, Charlette Withers, CNM will be providing us with monthly updates both through the CNMA newsletter and on a dedicated NGAC page at the CNMA website. You can read more about the work she and the rest of the Committee are doing to help move the Maximizing Optimal Maternity Services (MOMs) Act along with The BABIES Act and the Perinatal Workforce Act (which is a provision within the larger Black Maternal Health Momnibus) through the 117th Congress. These bills complement each other and work towards addressing the lack of racial and ethnic diversity across the entire perinatal workforce.
MOMMA Act Reintroduced
The Senate reintroduced the Mothers and Offspring Mortality and Morbidity Awareness (MOMMA) Act on February 24th. ACNM supports this critical legislation, which seeks to reduce the disparate maternal and infant morbidity and mortality rates, especially among Black and Brown birthing people and infants. Spearheaded by Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), the MOMMA Act would, among other initiatives, establish grant opportunities for entities with proven approaches to improving our nation’s mortality rate by offering better maternal and postpartum health care. Specifically, the MOMMA Act would invest federal funding in the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM) program, a national partnership of organizations, including ACNM, with goals improving the culture of care to eliminate preventable maternal mortality and severe morbidity across the care continuum.
Join AWHONN (virtually) on Capitol Hill
For those of us who are also AWHONN members, the AWHONN on Capitol Hill event will take place on March 23. Participants will learn about the following bills under consideration that will improve health care for women and newborns and how to move these bills forward when meeting with U.S. representatives, senators, and/or their staff.
The Mothers and Offspring Mortality and Morbidity Awareness Act
Protecting Moms Who Served Act
The Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service
Before meeting with congressional delegates, AWHONN will brief attendees and provide talking points and letters. Registration closes March 12.
Educational Materials and Consumer-Facing Campaigns:
Pregnancy and Breastfeeding During the COVID‐19 Pandemic: Your Workplace Rights
ACNM’s Share With Women series has been updated to include materials on Pregnancy and Breastfeeding During the COVID-19 Pandemic, which covers workplace accommodations during pregnancy and lactation, and information on learning about specific rights dependant upon company size and location in the country.
My Birth Matters
The California Health Care Foundation, Consumer Reports, and CMQCC have teamed up to develop a new consumer resource — My Birth Matters — designed to educate women about the overuse of C-sections and encourage them to engage with their care team to reduce their chances of having an avoidable C-section. Beginning on March 1 the My Birth Matters Communications Toolkit and PDFs for the poster and brochure, in all languages, will be available on the CMQCC website. Questions about the My Birth Matters campaign should be addressed to info@MyBirthMatters.org. The campaign’s videos are also available at their YouTube channel.
Education, Trainings, and Webinars
Perinatal Psychiatry CME Series, Session 3: PTSD and OCD
The third webinar in the Perinatal Psychiatry CME Series will be offered on March 10, 2021, 12:30 – 1:30. This session will focus on posttraumatic stress disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. For more information and to register, click here.
2021 Perinatal Mental Health Conference for Black Birth Workers, Providers, and Clinicians
The Perinatal Mental Health Conference for Black Birth Workers, Providers and Clinicians, hosted by Maternal Mental Health NOW, is a 4-part virtual event for Black clinicians in the Los Angeles County area. The event will take place on 4/30/21, 5/7/21, 5/14/21, and 5/21/21 from 9:00 am to 12:30 pm each day. This conference offers foundational knowledge on perinatal mental health care while centering the Black experience, and will assist the community in building concrete skills and tools to more adequately address the mental health needs of Black women and birthing people. For those who cannot attend in person, a recording of the full conference will be available to purchase for $199 once the conference is over. Scholarships are available! Please contact Anna King at anna@maternalmentalhealthnow.org with any questions.
Updates on Medi-Cal Rx
The Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) is delaying the planned Go-Live date of April 1, 2021 for Medi-Cal Rx because of the need to review new conflict avoidance protocols submitted by Magellan Health, Inc. (Magellan), the project’s contracted vendor. More information on the Go-Live date should be available in May. The Medi-Cal Rx Transition Pharmacy Cutoff Instructions and dates will be revised once a new Go-Live date is announced. You can read more about the updated plans here. In the meantime, please review the Provider Registration and Training FAQs.
Job openings to share?
If you have a job opening, please post it at www.CNMA.org/jobs! We will happily share your listing in our newsletter and on social media.
Questions? News? Want to get involved?
Email us at info@cnma.org
That's all for this month's issue. Catch you next time!
-CNMA MEDIA TEAM
Visit us at cnma.org
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