Candidate Notes on 99-WC5

99-WC5 on Jul 15, 1999

The teams of the Women’s Caucus are charged with advancing action on their designated issues in a bipartisan manner. Legislation from Team 3B: Prenatal and Postpartum Care:
• HR 1843—Mothers and Newborns Health Insurance Act—improve prenatal care and delivery of healthy babies by enrolling pregnant women under state CHIP programs and allowing the option of automatically enrolling the babies born to those women in CHIP. (Hyde/Lowey)
• HR2538—Folic Acid Promotion and Birth Defects Prevention Act—provide for a national folic acid education program to prevent birth defects. 70% of neural tube birth defects could be prevented if women of childbearing age consumed 400 micrograms of folic acid daily. The problem is that a majority of women are still not aware of the benefits of folic acid, nor are they consuming the recommended daily amount. (Roybal-Allard/Emerson)
• H. Res. 163—raise awareness of post partum depression. Approximately 400,000 women experience

post partum depression each year. More than just the “baby blues,” the more extreme cases of post partum depression can result in sadness, fatigue, anxiety, irritability, and low self esteem in new mothers. The resolution provides statistics, and provides recommendations on how the US can work to reduce its incidence, including providing information, training of medical providers, and screening of new mothers for symptoms for early detection of the problem. Additionally, the resolution calls on the U.S. to begin to collect data on post partum depression, so that we can measure its extent. (Capps-Kingston)

HR1848—Right to Breastfeed Act—ensure a woman’s right to breastfeed her child on any part of federal property (federal parks, federal buildings, and national museums) where she and her child have a right to be. (Maloney/Morella/Roybal-Allard) [STATUS: enacted as part of the FY2000 Treasury-Postal Appropriations bill]