NewYork-Presbyterian and March of Dimes have partnered to bring a mobile OBGYN office to the tri-state area. The Mom and Baby Mobile Health Center brings pregnancy, post-birth and women’s health care directly to mothers in need of care.
The mobile bus serves unhoused and undocumented women and collaborates with community-based organizations to provide safe healthcare. Additionally, the healthcare-mobile aims to help close the healthcare access gap and reduce negative health outcomes for moms, babies, and women of childbearing age. Some of the services provided include full obstetric exams, prenatal and postnatal care, STI screenings, ultrasounds and cervical cancer screenings.
The 40-foot unit features two exam rooms and an intake lab area, complete with materials to store specimens, medications and vaccines. New York-Presbyterian healthcare providers will staff the units and provide care for those in need of services.
Dr. Auja McDougale, the mobile center’s medical director and an obstetrician and gynecologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, explained that the mobile service provides important medical care to local mothers in need. “The Mom and Baby Mobile Health Center offers a bridge to care. Bringing patients into the healthcare system so they have ongoing, much-needed medical care is vital for healthy moms and healthy babies,” she said.
The mobile health center currently services two shelters for unhoused women and families in Queens. Officials plan to expand the services to other areas of Queens and Brooklyn that lack prenatal care.
Although the CDC reports a decline in U.S. maternal mortality rates, they are still significantly higher compared to other first-world countries. In New York, statistically, 1 in 18 babies is born to a mother who has received late or no prenatal care.
