[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 6533 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 6533

  To authorize the Secretary of Defense to share with State and local 
   health authorities the practices of, and lessons learned by, the 
   military health system for the prevention of infant and maternal 
                               mortality.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             April 17, 2020

 Ms. Escobar (for herself and Mrs. Hartzler) introduced the following 
  bill; which was referred to the Committee on Armed Services, and in 
 addition to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, for a period to be 
subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration 
  of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee 
                               concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To authorize the Secretary of Defense to share with State and local 
   health authorities the practices of, and lessons learned by, the 
   military health system for the prevention of infant and maternal 
                               mortality.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Defeat Infant and Maternal Mortality 
Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS; SENSE OF CONGRESS.

    (a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
            (1) According to a report by the Department of Defense 
        published in July 2019 titled ``Maternal and Infant Mortality 
        Rates in the Military Health System,'' between January 2009 and 
        June 2018, the military health system achieved a pregnancy-
        related mortality ratio of 7.40 deaths per 100,000 live births 
        across both direct care and purchased card systems. Over the 
        same period, the National Perinatal Information Center ratio 
        was a statistically significantly higher ratio of 11.3 deaths 
        per 100,000 live births.
            (2) The same report by the Department of Defense found that 
        the military health system's infant mortality rate of 2.51 
        deaths per 1,000 live births was statistically significantly 
        lower than the National Perinatal Information Center rate of 
        4.76 deaths per 1,000 live births.
            (3) In the United States, the maternal mortality rate 
        remains unfortunately high. Some States experience rates as 
        high as 24.3 deaths per 100,000 live births.
            (4) A report by the Centers for Disease Control published 
        in May 2019 on pregnancy-related deaths found that nearly 60 
        percent of such deaths are preventable with improved medical 
        care.
            (5) Components of the Department of Defense have previously 
        entered into memoranda of understanding with State and local 
        civilian health entities to better understand and improve 
        public health trends, such as unexpected child deaths.
    (b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that civilian 
health entities could benefit from enhanced information sharing with 
the military health system regarding best practices for safeguarding 
mothers and infants during delivery.

SEC. 3. INFORMATION SHARING BY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE REGARDING 
              PREVENTION OF INFANT AND MATERNAL MORTALITY.

    (a) Authorize Information Sharing.--The Secretary of Defense may 
enter into memoranda of understanding with State and local health 
authorities to share the practices of, and lessons learned by, the 
military health system for the prevention of infant and maternal 
mortality.
    (b) Definition of State.--In this section, the term ``State'' means 
each State of the United States, the District of Columbia, each 
commonwealth, territory or possession of the United States, and each 
federally recognized Indian Tribe.
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