Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act Analysis

Even with the Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act succeeding in accomplishing great things, the renewal of the law was not guaranteed. The upcoming 1924 elections brought into power a Congress with a greater concern for cutting taxes than with providing social welfare the public, and a president who was a supporter of big business and critic of a strong federal government (Koven & Michel, 2013). A major aspect of the Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act being passed in the first place was Congress voting for the bill because of the fear of losing women voters. Congress now realized after the end of the 1920s that women did not vote as a collective unit, but more so from individual perspectives, and they in turn had nothing to fear (Koven & Michel, 2013). …show more content…
The policy was the very first law at the Federal level to provide aid to those in need. After the Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act was implemented, United States infant mortality rates declined from 76 per 1,000 live births to 65 per 1,000 live births from 1921 to 1927 (Lefmann & Combs-Orne, 2014). The Children’s Bureau estimated that more than 4 million children and approximately 700,000 pregnant women received assistance by some form of the works done under the doctrine of the Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act (Moehling & Thomasson, 2012). Proving that the implementation of the policy was saving the lives of many children and their mothers. Educational programs, like hose funded by the Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act, are still being utilized today as ways to aid in the continued decrease of infant mortality (Moehling & Thomasson, 2012). Research has found that the Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act did make a difference in the rates of infant mortality, but certain interventions had more of an impact than others. Interventions that were more direct and personal are a more effective outcome at reducing infant mortality than the less personal ones such as the conferences and classes (Moehling & Thomasson, …show more content…
In doing that, programs that were showing the greatest results could have been pursued more and others not as much. If that were done then maybe a greater decline in infant mortality rates would have been achieved and it could have been a longer sustained policy. The only way I can see that option making the policy more effective and receiving better results is if they had the timeframe to do so. Even though the program was short-lived, the Children’s Bureau heralded it as a success and concluded that “the value of maternity and infancy work is reflected in the decrease in infant and maternal death rates in 1928 as compared with those in 1921” (Moehling & Thomasson, 2012, p.

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