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15
Improving Maternity Care at Hospitals. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
has awarded a grant to the National Initiative for hildren͛s Healthcare Quality to help hospitals
nationwide improve the quality of their maternity care.
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Providing Information on Influenza for Prenatal Care Providers. Because pregnant
women who contract influenza are at high risk for complications, the Department of Health and
Human Services has created a toolkit to provide information and resources to help prenatal care
providers implement Centers for Disease Control (CDC) influenza recommendations. The toolkit
covers clinical influenza presentation, prevention, treatment and chemoprophylaxis, infection
control, and intrapartum and newborn considerations.
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Supporting Mothers Who Choose to Breastfeed. The Affordable Care Act requires most
workplaces to provide reasonable break times and private space at work to express breast milk
up until a child͛s first birthday. The U.S. Surgeon General has also launched a nationwide effort
to support mothers who are breastfeeding. In addition, the Department of Agriculture continues
to raise awareness of the benefits of breastfeeding through its national breastfeeding campaign,
Loving Support Makes Breastfeeding Work. Lastly, the CDC is working with hospitals to support
mothers who choose to breastfeed.
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Digitally Connecting Expecting Mothers with Prenatal Tips. In February 2010, the
text4baby program (www.text4baby.org) was launched by an unprecedented partnership
including the National Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Coalition (HMHB), Voxiva, Johnson and
Johnson, CTIA-The Wireless Foundation, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The program sends free health tips
through text messaging to pregnant women and new moms who enroll. Since its launch,
text4baby has enrolled more than 300,000 individuals and sent more than 25 million text
messages. The program was picked as one of the HHS Innovates awardees in 2010 and won the
Best of Silver Anvil Award from Public Relations Society of America in 2011. Initial evaluation
results of the program are promising: One study showed ͞very high satisfaction with the service,
increase in users͛ health knowledge, improved interaction with healthcare providers, improved
adherence to appointments and immunizations, and increased access to health resources.͟
4.
Reproductive Health
Safeguarding Women’s ccess to Reproductive Health Services. Under the leadership of
Attorney General Eric Holder, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has worked to ensure continued
access to reproductive services by enforcing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE)
Act. Pursuant to this Act, DOJ has prosecuted crimes including verbal threats, physical
obstruction, bombings, arson, and planned homicides. DOJ has filed eight civil Freedom of
Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) complaints since 2009, compared with just one case filed in
the previous nine years.
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Protecting Funding for Family Planning Clinics. For many women, a family planning clinic is
their entry point into the health care system and is their primary source of care. This is
especially true for low-income women, women who are uninsured, and for Hispanic and African
American women. Each year, publicly funded family planning services prevent 1.94 million
unintended pregnancies, including 400,000 teen pregnancies. These services are highly cost-
effective, saving $4 for every $1 spent.
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President Obama has consistently supported and
defended Title X family planning clinics, in each year of his Administration. And in April 2011, he