The Coalition for Improving Maternity Services (CIMS) expresses its support of the National Birth Policy Coalition (NBPC) and The Big Push for Midwives Campaign.

Despite the increased national interest in healthcare quality improvement initiatives and evidence-based medicine, the provision of maternity care in this country remains plagued by unnecessary medical interventions with unsettling implications for maternal and infant outcomes. Our nation's healthcare delivery system is failing childbearing women and their babies as evidenced by worsening maternal and infant mortality rates.

CIMS shares the NBPC's commitment to the health and well-being of childbearing women and their babies. CIMS' evidence-based Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative (ratified in July 1996) supports the Midwives Model of Care and recommends access to professional midwifery services for all birthing mothers as the first of the ten steps toward providing Mother-Friendly maternity care.

To that end, CIMS supports the NBPC's goal of integrating the Midwives Model of Care into our national health care system and proudly endorses the NBPC organizing statement.

Read about CIMS's organizing statement.