What does Health Care Reform mean for Childbirth?

What does Health Care Reform mean for Childbirth? 

This bill mandates Medicaid payment for the birth center facility fee in the states (and jurisdictions) where birth centers are licensed.

This bill includes major provisions for not only birth centers but women's health. These provisions include things such as:

• 100% reimbursement of CNM services in Medicare Part B;
• Separate payments to birth attendants "as recognized under state law as determined appropriate by the Secretary";
• C-sections, giving birth and domestic violence can no longer be considered pre-existing conditions and used to deny insurance coverage;

• Guaranteed coverage for pregnancy;

• Workplace protection for nursing women;

• Guaranteed insurance coverage of mammograms for women;

• Screening for postpartum depression;

• A range of other preventative services such as screening for diabetes and heart disease. 

Additionally, Section 4207, entitled Reasonable Break Time for Nursing Mothers, allows a breastfeeding mother to take a break to pump. It requires business with more than 50 employees to provide a private space to pump, that is not a bathroom.

Previously, while 44 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, protect women's rights to breastfeed in public, less than half of the states have laws on the books relating to breastfeeding in the workplace.