The Maternity Care Coalition plans to present more than 400 postcards demanding "access to safe and affordable prenatal care and birthing options" for families in Northeast Philadelphia to their state legislators Thursday afternoon.

The postcards are calling for immediate action to improve prenatal and maternity care.

Coalition officials said with the closing of the maternity wards at Jeanes and Frankford hospitals over the past two years, the only one obstetrics unit still in Northeast Philadelphia is at Northeastern Hospital, which is at the very southern end of the area.

Several nearby suburban Philadelphia medical centers -- including Holy Redeemer, Abington Memorial and Lower Bucks hospital -- are reporting increases in births since the closures.

Since 1996, 14 area hospitals, citing expensive malpractice insurance costs and inadequate reimbursement rates from insurers, have closed their maternity wards. Just one, Jennersville Medical Center in southern Chester County, has opened an obstetrics department.

The Maternity Care Coalition, a nonprofit organization that works to improve maternal and child health, is advocating several solutions to the issue, such as opening a birthing center in the Northeast and introducing legislation to permit the insurance commissioner to raise reimbursement rates for maternal and child health services.

"There are two possibilities," said JoAnne Fischer, the coalition's executive director. "Either OB is made profitable, or we say that profit is not important and that you still need to provide that service to be in the community. Some states do regulate that, requiring services to fill the communities' needs. If we won't do that, we have to make it profitable, which means addressing reimbursement and liability."