NEW! Read a summary of the results of a systematic review of the evidence basis for Mother-Friendly Childbirth. (The full report was published in Winter 2007 in a special supplement to the The Journal of Perinatal Education and is available to the public for free download.) The summary document, developed by Citizens for Midwifery and Birth Network National in collaboration with the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services and Lamaze International, provides an overview of the key findings of the review and may be an indispensible tool for maternity care advocates to share with policy makers, consumers, health care providers, and others.

NEW! Raise funds for your grassroots birth organizations while raising awareness about our maternity care system. Host a private screening of the new film, The Business of Being Born, produced by Ricki Lake and directed by Abby Epstein.

NEW! Health care reform is a hot issue as the 2008 presidential elections approach. Learn the basics of health care reform and join with other women's health activists to make sure that women's voices are heard. The Avery Institute for Social Change, National Women's Health Network, and MergerWatch Project have joined forces to create a Webinar series entitled, Raising Women's Voices for the Health Care We Need. View the Webinar, Primer on the Basics of Health Care Reform, to get started. More Webinars will be available soon.

Stimulate change locally by showcasing your community's birth stories at a BOLD Red Tent event. BOLD's Red Tent event concept is simple: gather people under a "red tent" to listen to birth stories from your community and then use this "testimonial" as a call-to-action by presenting it to key local and national people.

A new Web page on the Childbirth Connection Web site answers the question: Why does the national U.S. cesarean section rate keep going up? The page dispels two myths that continue to arise and identifies interrelated factors that are leading to record-level cesarean rates year after year. The page is available as a PDF handout for journalists, policy makers, students and others.

Download a fact sheet called "Costs of Maternity and Infant Care" to compare the costs of vaginal birth with those of cesarean surgery, and to learn about average expenditures for preterm birth. This fact sheet was developed as part of a June 2007 Forum on Maternity Care and Consumer-Driven Health Plans, co-sponsored by the March of Dimes the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). You can download other materials and view the forum Web cast at the KFF Web site.