Sponsors (2)
The bill expands and strengthens VA maternity and perinatal care—improving continuity, screening, provider training, and accountability for pregnant veterans—while increasing federal costs and creating privacy and implementation challenges that must be managed.
Enrolled pregnant veterans will receive coordinated maternity care from pregnancy through 12 months postpartum, improving continuity of care and postpartum outcomes.
Veterans will receive expanded perinatal mental health screening and follow-up, increasing detection and treatment of perinatal mental health conditions and substance use.
Community maternity providers will get training on veterans' pregnancy/postpartum needs, improving care quality for veterans who use non-VA providers.
Expanding VA maternity services will likely increase federal spending and administrative costs, which could affect taxpayers and divert VA resources from other programs.
Collecting and publicly reporting disaggregated health data introduces privacy risks for veterans if data are not properly de-identified, which could discourage care-seeking.
Reporting outcomes for small subgroups (e.g., rural veterans) may produce small cell counts that challenge anonymity and complicate public reporting of results.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires VA to create a maternity care coordination program providing care from pregnancy through 12 months postpartum, mental health screening, provider training, and annual outcome reporting.
Official title: Amend title 38, United States Code, to require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to carry out a maternity care coordination program, and for other purposes.
Introduced June 4, 2026 by Tammy Duckworth · Last progress June 4, 2026
Creates a VA maternity care coordination program that gives enrolled veterans coordinated maternity care from pregnancy through 12 months postpartum, requires systematic mental health screening and performance management, trains and supports community maternity care providers about veterans’ unique needs, and mandates annual reporting to congressional veterans’ committees with disaggregated maternal outcome data and progress on oversight recommendations. It also defines key terms, sets privacy rules consistent with Privacy Act/HIPAA/VA law, adds a table entry, and repeals a prior statutory provision from the Protecting Moms Who Served Act of 2021.