Sheppard–Towner Maternity and Infancy Protection Act

The Sheppard–Towner Maternity and Infancy Protection Act of 1921 was a U.S. Act of Congress providing federal funding for maternity and child care. It was sponsored by senators Morris Sheppard and Horace Mann Towner, and signed by President Warren G. Harding on November 23, 1921.
The act was a response to the lack of adequate medical care for women and children. The deficit became especially noticeable during World War I, when many potential recruits were rejected for military service due to the sequellae of childhood diseases.^{[citation needed]} However, the act was allowed to lapse in 1929 after successful opposition by the American Medical Association, which saw the act as a socialist threat to its professional autonomy. This opposition was in spite of the fact that the Pediatric Section of the AMA House of Delegates had endorsed the renewal of the act. The rebuking of the Pediatric Section by the full House of Delegates lead to the members of the Pediatric Section establishing the American Academy of Pediatrics.[1