'Momnibus 2.0' bill attracts strong bipartisan support
Feb. 19—Julie Mudd of Bedford has three sons now, but she well remembers 17 years ago slipping into depression after having her first.
"After suffering miscarriages and struggling with fertility, I found myself successfully pregnant with my first child," Mudd told reporters at a news conference. "The sparkle fades from a long-awaited pregnancy that was met with a long bout" of depression.
Mudd was one of the lead speakers promoting the bipartisan "Momnibus 2.0," (SB 246) a series of mandates that would provide new mothers with maternal mental health, follow-up screenings and home visits for up to a year after the delivery of a child.
"All women are vulnerable to postpartum depression regardless of age, marital status or socioeconomic status," said Mudd, who has been a child-and-parent life coach for the past 16 years. "It isn't discriminatory; unfortunately access to care is."
Heather Martin, the first-ever maternal health navigator for Dartmouth Health, said the rate of postpartum depression among mothers in New Hampshire is among the highest in the country.
"It is time for our lawmakers to step up and support our moms," said Martin, who confided that her sister was a new mom who committed suicide.
Alison Palmer, a perinatal clinical nurse specialist in Manchester, said the state lacks enough providers who can cross medical disciplines.
She referred to a "hot potato" mentality when a pediatrician and a psychiatrist sometimes offer conflicting care that can be geared more to the health of the newborn rather than the mother.
"Who owns the mom? This is a part of our fragmented health care system," Palmer said.
Consultation line, leave for visits in the bill
State Sen. Denise Ricciardi, R-Bedford, co-authored the first edition of this bill two years ago, which increased the mandate for postpartum care under Medicaid to extend from 60 days after birth to a full year.
"This is going to fill critical mental health gaps through smart investments and key policy changes," Ricciardi said.
Sen. Suzanne Prentiss, D-Lebanon, said one of the most important upgrades is a $75,000 grant for the Department of Safety to arrange maternal delivery training for emergency medical service providers in rural parts of the state.
"When New Hampshire moms thrive and babies thrive, then New Hampshire families and the communities thrive. They are the bedrock of this state," said Prentiss, a paramedic and executive director of the American Trauma Society.
The bill would also spend $550,000 over the next two years to create a perinatal psychiatric provider consultation line within the state Department of Health and Human Services.
Mothers on Medicaid would be eligible to receive screening for depression at the time of the one, two-, four- and six-month well-child visits for the family under the bill.
Paula Rogers, a former insurance commissioner who lobbies for health insurance companies, said the Legislature in 1997 began to require maternal health care for all families, but the mental health provision has been missing since then.
Rogers said her clients for the most part already provide the level of coverage mandated in the bill.
The bill would also direct a $30,000 study into the barriers to creating child delivery centers in the state, which has seen 11 of them close over the past two decades.
John Reynolds, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, raised concern about how this would guarantee leave for mothers to attend post-delivery appointments.
The bill would provide the mandate for all companies with 20 employees or more. Reynolds said the 50-employee standard is already used under the federal Affordable Care Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act laws.
Ricciardi's significant amendment to the bill she presented Wednesday would limit the leave time to 25 hours for the appointments during the first year of a newborn's life.
Sponsors agreed to strip from the bill a provision that would have guaranteed a mother who went out on leave for depression could have her job restored once she was well enough to return to the workforce.
klandrigan@unionleader.com
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