Volunteers, Sponsors and Warm Bodies needed! Please Contact Jennifer at jencassady2@gmail.com if you would like to help out!
PRESS RELEASE
What: National Rally for Change
When: Labor Day, September 3,
2012 10am – 12pm
Where: Pickett Park, Across from Renown Medical
Center
Local Contacts: Jennifer Cassady
[jencassady2@gmail.com]
The Largest Women’s Rights Movement in Decades is
Coming to Reno
A monumental uprising is on the
horizon. Thousands of men, women and children will gather on September 3rd,
as part of a national movement at Pickett Park, Across from Renown Medical
Center. The rallies are being hosted in over 100 major cities, coast to
coast, for Improving Birth’s “National
Rally for Change on Labor Day”. Thanks to the intricate nature of social
media, ImprovingBirth.org
has been able to organize a massive movement to bring awareness to the lack of
evidence-based maternity care in the US. With supporters like talk show host
Ricki Lake and sponsors such as “International Cesarean Awareness Network” and the “American Association of Birth Centers,”
this is sure to be an impactful event.
Much of scientific evidence takes
an average of 20 to 30 years to become standard practice in our maternity care
system; this is an unacceptable time table especially when talking about the
wellbeing of mothers and babies. Until we get it right, we are needlessly
subjecting mothers and babies to major abdominal surgery, the long term side
effects that go along with that and the unnecessary risk of death for both.
“Despite
the dire situation, this is not a protest,” says Dawn Thompson, founder of
ImprovingBirth. “It is a public awareness campaign to bring attention to the
outdated practices that have been proven time and again to not be what is best
for mothers and babies.”
Ina May Gaskin, Midwife and Right
Livelihood Award winner, says “We need medical practice standards at both the
federal and the state level that would address C-sections performed without
medical justification and assure more mother-friendly births and fewer medical
interventions during labor.” This is just one of the six steps Gaskin believes
to be essential in obtaining better maternal healthcare.
Improving Birth was founded with
the vision of encouraging hospital administrators to review their
birth-specific policies and procedures. We ask that they implement incentive
programs for doctors and nurses to get up-to-date information and education
about the most current care practices.
The U.S. outspends every country in the world for maternity care, and
yet we rank #49 for maternal mortality rates.
In fact, Amnesty International reports that “women in the US face a
greater risk of maternal death than nearly all European countries, as well as
Canada and several countries in Asia and the Middle East.”
We Can Do Better.
