Fetal Medicine
FOUNDATION OF AMERICA
PROMOTING HEALTH FOR MOM & BABY
In Pregnancy & Delivery
WHO WE ARE
Dr. Mark I. Evans founded the Fetal Medicine Foundation of America (FMFA) in 2001 and has been its President since then. He is board certified in obstetrics & gynecology as well as medical genetics. He is Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai. Before returning to his native NY in 2003, he was the Charlotte B. Failing Distinguished Professor and Chairman of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Professor of Molecular Medicine and Genetics, and Professor of Pathology at Wayne State University in Detroit. He has been President of the International Fetal Medicine and Surgery Society and the Central Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and he has won multiple research and service awards from academic societies and public advocacy groups.
Dr. Evans founded the FMFA to promote and support cutting edge research, provide a forum for physician education, and foster collaborations on multiple fronts to improve the health care of women, their fetuses, and babies. The Foundation, which is a US 501c3 IRS approved charity has been able to support over $1,000,000 for projects around the world. These studies have developed new methods for screening pregnant women for genetic risks, methods for diagnosing disorders, and methods for treating abnormalities in utero. The FMFA has also encompassed non-pregnancy women’s health through the Varadi Ovarian Initiative for Cancer Education which has provided substantial financial contributions to Mt. Sinai research. FMFA lectures and conferences have educated thousands of obstetricians on the newest methods of patient care.
Of major focus at the current time: improving the care of women in labor and delivery. Any new approach should improve outcomes for both mother and baby and reduce the need for emergency deliveries by developing both:
- An overall improved environment to promote the safety, quality, and experience for patients in labor.
- A unique quantitative assessment of electronic fetal monitoring to improve the assessment of fetal and maternal health in labor.
CURRENT PROJECT
Manhattan Maternity
Manhattan Maternity has developed a unique concept to create an environment that adjusts the level of regimentation of care to the level of need and apportions the level of medical resources to level of need.
Dr. Jaqueline Worth and Dr. George Mussalli
Given the Corona pandemic, there has been an intense desire for women to be able to deliver their babies in a safe environment – away from the crisis environment of the hospitals in a pandemic at which partners/husbands have little to no ability to share in the birth process, adding stress to the mother.
FMFA will be studying, modeling, and monitoring the effects of Manhattan Maternity’s pioneering Maternity Center model of creating a more patient-centric, less sterile, and compassionate environment for women to safely have their babies. The FMFA has previously published papers on such analyses with relationship to high risk care. Here, we focus on the majority of women who are not high risk, want a “better environment” to have their babies, but want to make sure it is done in a safe and caring center.