Purpose of the Symposium
1) Discuss the benefits of the Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative (MFCI) for hospitals, clinics, mothers, infants, and clinicians
2) Provide a forum for discussion among nurses, doctors, doulas, childbirth educators, midwives, administrators and others on the challenges and opportunities of implementing mother-friendly care in the clinical or hospital setting.
3) Provide a forum for dissemination of evidence-based best practices for maternity care.
4) Support clinics, hospitals and community-based programs in developing plans of action to shift the thinking in their organizations towards mother-friendly care and develop multidisciplinary coordinated networks of maternity care providers.
5) Practitioners and students of maternity care will obtain an objective understanding of the collision of worldviews and belief systems when the medical and midwifery models of maternity care intersect.
6) Participants will describe how the perinatal community as a whole can best collaborate to provide optimal care for mothers and infants based on the principals of the MFCI and the evidence-based practices available as outlined in the 10 steps of the Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative (MFCI).
Principles of the MFCI are:
Nan Strauss, JD, is the Director of Policy and Research for Choices in Childbirth a non profit organization based in NYC, NY. Most recently, Nan was the lead author of Doula Care in New York City: Advancing the Goals of the Affordable Care Act, which pairs research on the benefits of doula care with personal accounts from women and doulas, to document the need to expand access to doula care for all women in New York City.
Before joining Choices in Childbirth, Nan worked as an independent researcher and policy consultant on maternal health.
Previously, Nan served as the Director of Maternal Health Research and Policy with Amnesty International USA, where she worked on issues related to maternal and reproductive health and health care, in the context of the right to health. She was the lead researcher and co-author of the groundbreaking report, Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA in 2010.
Nan has been involved in campaigning, policy, advocacy, and media efforts regarding maternal health. She has briefed members of Congress on the U.S. maternal health crisis and worked to develop and strengthen federal and state legislation. Nan has presented Amnesty International’s findings and advocacy on maternal health at conferences and has been interviewed by national and international media.
Prior to joining Amnesty, Nan worked as a staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, where she litigated cases in federal court.
A graduate of Yale University, Nan worked in theater, documentary, and film production in New York City before attending law school. Nan graduated from New York University Law School, after which she clerked for the Honorable Cheryl L. Pollak, a United States Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of New York.
In her session, Nan will present on the findings reported in their Doula report and make recommendations on how doulas can help acheive the goals of health equity for all pregnant women. She will also highlight the pertinent points that were brought out in the Amnesty International Deadly Delivery report on the maternal healthcare crisis in the U.S. underlying the causes of the disparities among women of color.
choicesinchildbirth.org/about-us/
