Promote specialty clinics for monitoring of a woman's pregnancy utilizing the "best practices" protocol in place of the current "one-size-fits-all" standard now in use, which is "set" by what insurers will pay rather than available technology and medical need.

More and more these days we hear to all too familiar phrase, "Insurance won't pay for that." We're not talking about experimental drugs mind you, or innovative procedures as yet unproven. We're talking about common procedures being denied to patients by clerks because a "demonstratable need" has not been established.

Unfortunately for stillbirth mothers, by the time the need is established, her baby is already dead. That's because so many stillbirths occur without warning. Here one minute, gone the next. If for no other reason it is cause for treating all pregnancies as "high risk".

Insurance companies are among the most powerful industries in America, with highly-paid lobbyists who guard against just the kind of change we advocate. That's why in the near term, until the need is demonstrated, women wanting to avail themselves of a "best practices" pregnancy protocol can expect to pay for the additional screenings and tests that will be a prime component of that protocol. Is there a mother alive today who would not gladly have paid a premium for medical care if it meant she would have been more likely to have avoided the stillbirth of her child?

There's an assumption made by pregnant women that the care they are receiving is appropriate. In the majority of cases she would be right. And yet, though the medical community is willing to "accept" a 1 in 115 loss ratio of stillbirth deaths, not so for the mother who loses that one child.

When we board an airplane we expect to arrive at our destination. Mechanically, planes are near perfect and losses due to mechanical causes are rare. With heightened security the chance of falling victim to a terrorist plot is miniscule too. As a society we demand such reassurance. Who would board a plane knowing we had a 1 in 115 chance of not arriving at our destination. Women do it every day when they conceive. And that doesn't even count the miscarriages.

We believe a woman should have access to the level of care and pregnancy management she is willing to pay for, which is why we favor the establishment of specialty clinics until a "best practices" protocol designed by doctors, not insurance companies, replaces the "adequate care" model now in universal use.