Carrying out the Action Plan

We have carried out our action plan. We have contacted Sen. Mark Warrner (D-VA) and Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) for support for this bill and have not heard a response. Also we have contacted many stakeholders, including the Waynesboro Health Department, Healthy Families, Harrisonburg Pregnancy Center, Planned Parenthood, Virginia Nurses Association, and the Virginia Department of Health. Since contacting them to look at our blog, the only agency that responded was the VNA. They said that the bill was very interesting and that they were excited to see students getting involved in politics, but that they did not deal with the national level and referred us to the ANA (who has currently not responded). We are hoping that in the weeks to come we will get more responses from both the Senators and stakeholders contacted.

Update On Bill Actions

Unfortunately this bill has not moved since it's introduction to Congress on January 15, 2009. It is currently waiting to be voted on by Congress. Keep petitioning your legislators to support this bill and encourage them to move it in to action!

Stakeholders Contacted

Due to the beneficial impact of the Pregnant Women Support Act, we thought it necessary to spread knowledge about the advantages this bill offers pregnant women to our community and stakeholders and to increase the amount of support for the bill. The stakeholders contacted were the Waynesboro Health Department, Healthy Families, Harrisonburg Pregnancy Center, Planned Parenthood, Virginia Nurses Association, and the Virginia Department of Health. These stakeholders were chosen because they frequently interact with pregnant women and see the negative impact that mothers lacking resources, high risk pregnancies, and mothers who are uninformed about pregnancy options has on the outcome and general feelings of the pregnancy and child. We are hoping that by contacting them they will be able to show support for increasing resources and information available to women and their child. We will be able to update you with feedback received within the week from the various stakeholders. We encourage you to contact your legislators and additional stakeholders to show increased support for the bill.

Scholarly Evidence

According to a research study by Brown and Amankwaa, pregnant women attending college feel an overwhelming responsibility to their pregnancies though they are often left alone without the support of their partner. The women studied said that providing unconditional love, dealing with the baby’s father, pursing education and finding extra help in childcare were important in their decisions to keep their pregnancies. This is why the Pregnancy Support Act of 2009 would be beneficial to these women and their new families by providing childcare so that the mother will have the ability to pursue higher education, thus have the means to support her family in the future.

Brown, R. L., & Amankwaa, A. A. (2007). College females as mothers: Balancing the roles of student and motherhood. ABNF Journal, 18(1), 25-29. Retrieved March 17, 2009 from CINAHL Plus with Full Text database

Our Position, Key stakeholders, and Action Plan

Our Position
We support the Pregnant Women's Support Act. We think that this bill will be beneficial to all parties involved in a woman's pregnancy. It will help prevent complications during pregnancy and will hopefully allow for more healthy deliveries in the United States. Also it will provide financial support and more community resources for families after the pregnancy. We think that through education and more resources available to women who are pregnant or who might become pregnant will allow them to feel more comfortable before, during and after the pregnancy, more in control of the pregnancy, and more informed of options if complications do arise.

Key Stakeholders
The key stakeholders involved in this bill include constituents, pregnant women and their children, women who desire to become pregnant, pregnant teenagers attending high school, pregnant women attending college, doctors, nurses, State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and numerous health care agencies.

Supporters of this bill include Sen. Robert Casey and Sen. Bill Nelson.

Action Plan
To get the word out about this bill we plan to first off update this blog as often as possible with current information. We hope to do this by researching scholarly journals and posting the impact that this bill could have on the health of pregnant women. We also will be watching what the bill does and the progress it is making within the senate. Secondly, we have already contacted Sen. Mark Warrner (D-VA) and Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) to support this bill. We encourage everyone to also contact their senators to support this bill. Lastly we plan to inform key stakeholders about the bill and the issues that it covers. We plan to contact local agencies that are involved with the care of pregnant women and their babies within our community and let them know about the bill and our blog. Some agencies include a school run program for high school students with children (4T program), a community based program that works with mothers through parenting classes, hold play dates, and provide necessary items for babies (car seats, high chairs, etc.) and local pregnancy clinics.

Potential Impact

Nurses: This act enables nurses to become more active in school systems by providing education on pregnancy. Nurses will have more access to ultrasound equipment with the assistance of grants, leading to earlier diagnoses of problems with the fetus or mother, increasing faster treatments and support of mothers.

Client: With the Pregnant Women Support Act, mothers will receive more financial support to raise their child, have more accessible ultrasound resources, and have health insurance coverage for their unborn child. They will also receive more information about the importance of prenatal care.

Health Care System: Overall, the health care system will be positively influenced by the passage of the act. There will be more financial support for pregnant women, parents, and children. A decreased number of abortions, unintended pregnancies, and teen pregnancies will be seen. There will also be increased information available about prenatal care, birth defects, and abortion.

Scholarly Evidence

Pregnant teens are at a high risk for not obtaining prenatal care and also for delivering a low birth weight child. The study showed that teens who received prenatal care expended less funds than those who received no care.

Hueston, W. J., Quattlebaum, R. G., & Benich, J. J. (2008). How much money can early prenatal care for teen pregnancies save?: A cost-benefit analysis. Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 21(3), 184-190. Retrieved March 3, 2009 from CINAHL Plus with Full Text database <http://www.jabfm.org/cgi/reprint/21/3/184>


In the past, reasons women may have choosen to have an abortion included 1) having a baby would interfere with school, 2) work or other responsibilities, and 3) that they could not afford a child. This recent study indicates that the decision to have an abortion has multiple factors which include not being able to afford to have a child, responsibilities to their own living children, partner issues, and unreadiness to parent. The Pregnancy Support Act proposes helping pregnant women become prepared to raise a child by providing educational and financial support during and after pregnancy.

Finer, L., Frohwirth, L., Dauphinee, L., Singh, S., & Moore, A. (2005, September). Reasons U.S. women have abortions: quantitative and qualitative perspectives. Perspectives on Sexual & Reproductive Health, 37(3), 110-118. Retrieved March 4, 2009, from CINAHL Plus with Full Text database <http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/118716537/PDFSTART>