Seacoast Online – February 19, 2025
By PATRICK HO
Today, the New Hampshire Senate Health and Human Services Committee will hear SB 246 – better known as “Momnibus 2.0”. This bill, primarily sponsored by Senator Denise Ricciardi, has bipartisan support with a total of eight Republican cosponsors and five Democratic cosponsors. This legislation builds on the Momnibus bill from 2024. The new Momnibus 2.0 bill, SB 246, would improve access to health care services for new mothers in New Hampshire by providing a broad range of services and supports, such as securing funding for rural maternal health EMS services, requiring insurance coverage for perinatal home visiting services, and expanding employee protection to ensure that mothers can attend postpartum care medical visits.
As a psychiatrist, and as the president of the New Hampshire Medical Society, I truly believe that this is one of the most important and impactful bills for our state. Each portion of the Momnibus 2.0 bill addresses an important barrier that our state’s new mothers face when seeking health care. In addition to improving general access to care, the Momnibus 2.0 bill will provide for maternal depression screening, and create a position for a psychiatric consultant in the Department of Health and Human Services dedicated to assisting with the mental health care of new mothers.
All mothers deserve to be able to access the right care at the right time. The postpartum period in particular can be a vulnerable time for new mothers and their children and can sometimes require additional medical and mental health care. From a public health perspective, untreated perinatal mental health disorders have been shown to contribute to higher-risk pregnancy, as well as poor health outcomes for both the mother and child. Prioritizing access to mental health care for New Hampshire’s mothers can have a profound public health impact on the wellbeing of new mothers and their children. Removing barriers to care for new mothers is one of the most important ways that we can ensure a healthy future for our state.
The New Hampshire Medical Society supports legislation that improves access to care and prioritizes mental health care. New mothers in New Hampshire face many barriers to receiving high quality health and mental health care. The Momnibus 2.0 bill is a bipartisan effort to improve the ability for new mothers to get necessary medical and mental health care for themselves and their children during the postpartum period where more support may be necessary, not less. Please encourage your state senator to vote “yes” on SB 246 and to prioritize public health bills like this that help build healthy families.
Patrick Ho, MD, MPH, President, New Hampshire Medical Society, Lebanon, NH