Senator Smith Leads Effort to Improve Access to Rural Health Care for New and Expecting Moms. Expands Rural Telehealth.

The US ranks forty-sixth when it comes to pregnancy-related deaths and is the only industrialized country in the world with an increasing maternal mortality rate. Maternal mortality is a particularly striking issue in rural America. With shortages of health care providers and a challenging payer mix, rural hospitals are more likely to close their labor and delivery units in order to make ends meet. Sen Tina Smith’s (D-MN) Rural MOMS Act would take important first steps in understanding the root causes of maternal mortality and morbidity and developing solutions to improve maternal care in rural America. The Rural MOMS Act expands existing federal telehhealth grant programs to include birth and postpartum services as part of telehealth networks and to allow federal funding to be used for ultrasound machines, fetal monitoring equipment, and other pregnancy-related technology.