Maternal Health Awareness Day

MCH Practice Fellow Avery Desrosiers shares how quality improvement can affect maternal and child health and how it encourages innovative changes within specific communities to improve health outcomes for vulnerable populations.

New York State is testing a set of evidence-based strategies that hospitals can implement to improve postpartum hemorrhage care. Here, Peter Cherouny, MD, a clinical advisor for the project, offers insight and initial findings on three areas those strategies seek to improve.

Preeclampsia, a dangerous disorder where a mother’s blood pressure spikes during pregnancy, is one of the leading causes of maternal and infant illness and death. Here, a mother who lost her baby daughter shares a plea for improvement. 

Less than one in five adolescent mothers exclusively breastfeeds their babies for the recommended six months. This means that, with the right supports, over 80 percent more teen moms and their babies can gain proven health benefits, including a reduced risk of sudden infant death syndrome. Here, Lori Feldman-Winter, MD, MPH, highlights strategies that uniquely empower teen mothers to breastfeed their babies. 

NICHQ CEO Scott D. Berns, MD, MPH, FAAP shares a message on healing and the ongoing need for equity-designed systems in 2021 and beyond.

“There is a fourth trimester to pregnancy, and we neglect it at our peril. It is a transitional period of approximately three months after birth, particularly marked after first babies, when many women are emotionally highly vulnerable, when they experience confusion and recurrent despair, and during which anxiety is normal and states of reactive depression commonplace.”

NICHQ joins more than 100 organizations and the March of Dimes in calling for drastic #BlanketChange to keep more mothers and babies alive.

Affecting about 1 in 10 babies born in the United States, preterm birth (i.e., birth before 37 weeks gestation) is a leading cause of infant mortality and a major contributor to long-term disability. 

How do you realistically support tired and overwhelmed mothers to breastfeed safely? This all too common question haunts maternal health professionals who seek to encourage both breastfeeding and safe sleep habits. Here, Michael Goodstein, MD, a neonatologist and safe sleep and breastfeeding expert, offers three opportunities for improvement. 

In an increasingly digital age, telelactation support is a powerful opportunity to increase breastfeeding rates among amothers who can't access classes. In addition to over the phone, lactation consultants and counselors can support moms through video chats like Skype, via text message or in online communities.  

To understand health holistically, we need to consider it outside the silo of a healthcare system. We need to take into account the many other factors that impact our individual health, factors like the schools we attend and the relationships we experience. Read on to uncover three tried and tested ways to make changes in your state and help ensure that all children, regardless of circumstance, achieve equity in health outcomes.

Educating mothers about the benefits of breastfeeding before they enter the hospital increases the likelihood mothers will choose the beneficial feeding method. However, building bridges between care providers, community groups and hospitals can be surprisingly difficult.

In New York State (NYS), Black women are more than three times as likely to die from pregnancy or giving birth as white women. This disparity has persisted alongside the U.S.’s rising maternal mortality rate, which has doubled in the past 15 years. Recognizing the urgent need for change both within their state and across the nation, NYS launched an initiative to engage women of color in identifying sustainable solutions for improvement.

Experts from the Brookings Institution, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the Medical University of South Carolina and Postpartum Support Charleston analyze the impact of maternal depression on children and families, and offer strategies health professionals can take to ensure that more mothers are screened and referred to support and resources.

Racism has been baked into U.S. systems and structures since enslavement, and Black families and other people of color are still suffering its consequences. As health professionals, it’s vital to acknowledge that all forms of racism—institutional, personally mediated and internalized—are real, are present in health systems, and are adversely affecting the health of Black families. One person can’t solve a systemic problem, but there are impactful steps everyone can take to help address it. 

Persistent and unacceptable disparities in infant mortality and perinatal outcomes affect the health of families in every state in the nation. For the past 30 years, the federal Healthy Start program has provided integral maternal and child health services in communities disproportionately impacted by negative birth outcomes. Now, NICHQ is working with all 101 Healthy Start community sites to harness lessons learned, implement innovative approaches to improvement, and ultimately start to close the disparity gap in maternal and infant health.

Racial disparities in health and healthcare access have a profound affect on infant health, especially when it comes to preterm births.

Louisiana has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country. And troublingly, Black women are dying from pregnancy-related deaths at over four times the rate of white women. According to a recent report, more than half of these deaths could have been prevented by making a system change, either at the patient, community, or hospital level. These findings illustrate the enormous potential that quality improvement initiatives have for reducing maternal mortality in Louisiana and eliminating the Black-white disparity in maternal deaths. Here, the Louisiana Perinatal Quality Collaborative shares seven opportunities for improvement.