The Informed Medical Decisions Foundation and Childbirth Connection are excited to announce the launch of the first national maternity care shared decision making initiative. The initiative’s goal is to provide women and their families with trustworthy and personalized information to help them make informed decisions about their care. This collaborative effort will break new ground by developing decision aids for women with low literacy skills and will test innovative strategies for engaging women and care providers in the clinical setting.
Maternal-newborn care is the leading reason for hospitalization in the United States, with more than four million women giving birth every year. The decisions that childbearing women make have considerable implications – both positive and negative – for their own health, their babies’ health and the entire health system.
The Informed Medical Decision Foundation has been working for over two decades to advance evidence-based shared decision making and develop high quality decision aid tools. Childbirth Connection is a highly-respected and nationally-recognized organization among national health care leaders as a leading voice for evidence-based maternity care and maternity care quality improvement.
Together, these two organizations are uniquely positioned to provide comprehensive and accessible tools for maternal care decision making and to engage women as a partners in their maternity care. The wide-spread implementation of maternity shared decision making is critical to improving the quality and outcomes of care for women and their babies.
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