How to Become Mother-Friendly

The evidence-based Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative (MFCI) evolved from the collaborative effort of many individuals and more than 26 organizations focused on pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding during meetings in the 1990s spanning nearly 3 years. Acknowledging the need to ensure the ongoing education and promotion of the Mother-Friendly Childbirth model of care defined in the MFCI, Coalition for Improving Maternity Services (CIMS) was established as a nonprofit corporation in 1997. CIMS continues to promote this model of care with its publications, forums, and dogged determination to highlight programs that work and to debunk medical information that lacks evidence. CIMS’s mission, to promote a wellness model of maternity care that will improve birth outcomes and substantially reduce costs, focuses on prevention and wellness as the alternatives to high-cost screening, diagnosis, and treatment programs. This book provides readers with a comprehensive review of the best available evidence to support best practices consistent with the mother-friendly philosophy. It provides guidelines by which caregivers may practice safe, evidence-based care that improves outcomes for mothers, babies, and families. It also provides readers with policies and procedures they can use to increase the rate of vaginal birth, vaginal birth after cesarean, and breastfeeding, while averting preventable cesareans, unnecessary interventions, and traumatic births.