Alliance for the Improvement of Maternity Services (AIMS)

Return to Home Page

Return to Legislation Affecting Maternity Care

MATERNITY INFORMATION ACT

To amend the public health law, in relation to the distribution of informational leaflets to maternity patients.

Section 1. The public health law is amended by adding a new section twenty eight hundred three - j to read as follows:

Sec. 2803 - j. Maternity patients informational leaflet.

  1. The Commissioner shall require that every hospital and birth center shall prepare in printed or photocopied form and distribute at the time of pre-booking directly to each prospective maternity patient and, upon request, to the general public an informational leaflet. Such leaflet shall be designed by the commissioner and shall contain brief definitions of maternity related procedures and practices as specified in subdivision 2 of this section and such other material deemed appropriate by the commissioner. Hospitals and birth centers may also elect to distribute additional explanatory material along with the maternity patients informational leaflet.

  2. Such leaflet shall also include statistics relating to the annual percentage of maternity related procedures performed at such hospital or birth center, as provided by the Commissioner, including but not limited to the following:

a. the annual rate of cesarean sections, primary, repeat, and total performed at such facility;

b. the annual percentage of women with previous cesarean sections who have had a subsequent successful vaginal birth;

c. the annual percentage of deliveries by midwives;

d. the annual percentage of births utilizing electronic fetal monitoring listed on the basis of external and internal;

e. the annual percentage of births utilizing forceps, listed on the basis of low forceps delivery and mid forceps delivery;

f. the annual percentage of breech births delivered vaginally;

g. the annual percentage of births utilizing analgesia;

h. the annual percentage of births utilizing anesthesia including general, spinal, epidural, and paracervical listed on the basis of vaginal and cesarean births;

i. the annual percentage of births utilizing induction of labor;

j. the annual percentage of births utilizing augmentation of labor;

k. the annual percentage of vaginal births utilizing episiotomies;

l. whether Birthing Rooms are available for use in the facility;

m. whether Rooming-In is available in the facility, on the basis of 24 hours a day or daytime.

  1. Compilation of the statistics set out in subdivision 2 of this section shall be the responsibility of the commissioner.

  2. Statistical information shall be presented in the most recent one year aggregate.

Sec 2. This act shall take effect one year after it shall have become a law.