Maternal and Child Health News

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Kittitas Valley Healthcare, based in Ellensburg, Wash., was delivering 300-350 babies each year in the region prior to 2022, offering the area’s only comprehensive obstetric services.
An infographic released by the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center highlights the decline of maternity care access in rural counties across the U.S. from 2010-2022, finding that nearly 59% of rural counties did not have any hospital-based obstetric services as of 2022.
The Health Resources and Services Administration June 11 announced that Montana is eligible for $5.4 million in federal funding this year for the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting program, which provides voluntary home visits to improve maternal and child health for families in high-risk communities.
The award-winning Beyond Birth podcast series helps bring hospital programs to life by telling personal stories of how they positively impact mothers and their families, writes Julia Resnick, AHA’s director of strategic initiatives.
Health care organizations can create more inclusive, responsive and effective maternal health initiatives that address the unique challenges Black women encounter during pregnancy and childbirth by codesigning care with community partners.
Given the pressures of parenting, learn how health care organizations are supporting new moms to enable them to thrive at work, and most importantly, at home, in the final episode of AHA’s “Beyond Birth” podcast series.
Mounting pressures on the health care workforce have created a crisis with short-term staffing shortages and a long-range picture of an unfulfilled talent pipeline, and significant projected shortages of physicians and allied health and behavioral health care providers will likely be felt even more strongly in underserved communities, AHA told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in a statement submitted for a hearing May 2.
AHA’s Better Health for Mothers and Babies initiative April 29 released a resource highlighting strategies hospitals are implementing to raise awareness and detect heart health needs early, during and after pregnancy.
Kittitas Valley Healthcare in rural Washington state last year implemented an innovative new model for retaining essential obstetric and other women’s health services in its community.
Two caregivers discuss how Colorado’s San Luis Valley Hospital creatively maximizes its resources to continue to deliver obstetric services to the families and communities it serves.
As part of a yearlong series devoted to rural hospitals and health systems in America, two experts from Intermountain Health discuss their "First 1,000 Days of Life" initiative, which provides wraparound services for at-risk new moms.
The House March 5 voted 382-12 to pass the AHA-supported Preventing Maternal Deaths Reauthorization Act (H.R. 3838), bipartisan legislation that would reauthorize federal support for state-based committees that review pregnancy-related deaths to identify causes and make recommendations to prevent future mortalities.
The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health Feb. 29 held a hearing on legislative proposals to expand access to treatment for patients with rare diseases, which included two hospital witnesses.
Part of a special series exploring how hospitals and health systems are addressing the medical complications that can accompany pregnancy, this podcast shares how Orlando Health is reaching outside its walls to support heart-healthy pregnancies and postpartum periods for new mothers.
Iowa, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota and New Mexico will participate in a new Department of Health and Human Services collaborative that will bring health care providers, experts and community partners together to study and improve postpartum mortality.
The Department of Health and Human Services Feb. 14 named several hospital and health system programs final phase winners in its national competition to improve equity in postpartum care for Black and American Indian/Alaska Native women enrolled in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Syphilis infections during pregnancy more than tripled between 2016 and 2022 to 280 cases per 100,000 births, ranging from 46 per 100,000 in Maine to 763 per 100,000 in South Dakota, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Feb. 13.
Learn how hospitals and health systems are improving maternal and child health outcomes in this synopsis of the latest resources from AHA’s Better Health for Mothers and Babies initiative.
In the latest episode of the AHA series “Beyond Birth,” clinical social worker Laura La Porte and new mom Anna Ma discuss how the Perinatal Depression Program at Endeavor Health supports a new mother's mental health and provides avenues for parents to seek help.
State Medicaid agencies can apply next spring for funding and technical assistance to participate in the Transforming Maternal Health Model, a new 10-year payment and care delivery model that will develop and implement a whole-person approach to pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum care for women with Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program coverage.