Grassroots Network: Happy Thanksgiving from the MAMA Campaign

Dear Friends,

Hoping each of you has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Feel free to forward the message from the MAMA Campaign to other lists… And don’t forget to write to your Senators!

Sincerely,
Susan Hodges “gatekeeper”



MAMA Gives Thanks!
The MAMA Campaign is moving forward with great energy and determination to include Certified Professional Midwives in health care bills this year! As the country enters the Thanksgiving Week, we want to take a moment to give thanks for the extraordinary strides made in a few short months on Capitol Hill for midwives and mothers. And we want to express our deepest appreciation to all of you: our supporters, whose dedication, stamina, generosity, letters and dollars have made this progress possible.

MAMA is thankful for:

• Amazing grassroots participation from across the country­mothers, fathers, grandparents, midwives and other supporters­for your letters, calls and visits to legislators in support of CPMs
• Great support from key congress members who have declared the provision for CPMs to be “good policy for women and babies”
• Senator Cantwell (D-WA), for her provision in the Senate bill that will result in payment of the provider fee for state-licensed CPMs who provide services in licensed birth centers.
• Washington State midwives, for the data they prepared for the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) demonstrating significant improvements in quality and cost savings with CPM care
• Campaign donations of more than $140,000 that have resulted in the most successful fundraising campaign for midwives and mothers ever!

MAMA Needs Your Help On the Homestretch!
It’s time to “Pound the Table”! As MAMA continues negotiations to find a Senator to file the CPM provision as an amendment on the Senate floor, this is the time for ALL of us to send a clear message to all our Senators: Certified Professional Midwives will lower health care costs and improve the health of women and babies. There is a pregnant-woman sized hole in this legislation, Mrs. or Mr. Senator. Please fix it!

Find easy letter-writing information and sample letter text here . If you’ve already written a letter, write again! Please keep those letters coming!!!

Letter of the Week
Elizabeth Gilmore of New Mexico wrote a personal appeal to her Senator, Jeff Bingaman, asking him to “be our champion” on Capitol Hill:

"I am an enthusiastic constituent in Taos, NM, where you came to the ribbon-cutting of our Birth Center, in 1997…We are currently Medicaid providers in NM but only because our governor insisted. When he leaves office we may lose this designation because we still are not recognized by Federal Medicaid as providers!"

You too can ask a Senator to be a champion for CPMs! Click here to write a letter to your Senator.

Who Are MAMA’s donors?
She is a mother of four who has Medicaid, who paid out of pocket for her last two home waterbirths, and gave what she could to MAMA!

He is the father of three homeborn children and a nationally known musician, whose passion for his children’s births moved him to generously donate.

She is a midwife who dreams that someday not so far off she will be able to serve more low income women in her community.

She is the grandmother of five, whose daughter triumphed by having a vaginal birth with a CPM after a Cesarean in the hospital.

He is the best friend of a young couple finding their way through a first, surprise pregnancy with the love and guidance of a midwife.

She is a public health policymaker who recognizes that the status quo does not serve women and babies, and wants to help make a change.

She is a new mother who has been transformed through the experience of her birth, and wants to share it with everyone she knows.

She is me, he is you, they are us, working together to bring about big change with our big and small change. Every dollar counts! MAMA fundraising is on a roll, with only $30,000 needed to keep the campaign on track through December. Please help us over the finish line! Donate to MAMA today!