Maternal Health Task Force
The Maternal Health Task Force strives to create a strong, well-informed and collaborative community of individuals focused on ending preventable maternal mortality and morbidity worldwide.
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Boston, MA 02115
Blog
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What I Know About Black Mothers
By: Linda Goler Blount, President and CEO, Black Women’s Health Imperative This post is part of “Inequities in Maternal Mortality in the U.S.,” a blog series hosted by the MHTF….
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Launch of Safe Childbirth Checklist Offers New Approach to Improving Care for Mothers and Infants in Childbirth
By: Katherine Semrau, Director of the BetterBirth Program at Ariadne Labs, Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and Associate Epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Global Health Equity…
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Doulas Addressing Disparities in Health Care in NYC and Beyond
By Nan Strauss, Director of Policy and Research, Choices in Childbirth As is true worldwide, strategies to improve U.S. maternal health are widely known but remain unavailable to many women. New York City (NYC), known for its prestigious medical schools and high quality specialty care, is no exception to these disparities. Statistics signal the need for change. The maternal mortality ratio in NYC has exceeded the national average for 40 years and racial disparities in pregnancy-related deaths also surpass national rates. Newly released department of health data show that from 2006 through 2010, black women in NYC were 12 times as likely to suffer a pregnancy-related death as white women… read more
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Sobering Statistics About Giving Birth in the United States
By Priya Agrawal, Executive Director, Merck for Mothers It’s hard to believe that the United States (U.S.) ranks 46th in the world when it comes to the rate of women dying from pregnancy and childbirth complications. Our country’s maternal mortality statistics are the worst of all industrialized countries, and we also lag behind Kazakhstan, Libya and Qatar… read more
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Look at That Beautiful Map – How Can We Use That Technology to Improve Maternal and Newborn Survival?
By: Allisyn Moran, Senior Maternal Health Advisor, USAID Last month in Mexico City at the Global Maternal and Newborn Health Conference, we discussed a variety of important topics for improving…
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Community Health Workers Improve High-Risk Pregnancy Care in the United States
By: Laura Line, Director of Strategic Partnerships, Maternity Care Coalition This post is part of “Inequities in Maternal Mortality in the U.S.,” a blog series hosted by the MHTF. While…
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Improving Maternal Health in the United States: Incorporating Our Primary Stakeholders
By Suha Patel. As a maternal health provider, I would love to know what women think about the care my colleagues and I provide. I need more comprehensive, high quality information about the patient experience in the maternal health care system than my online reviews or the latest discussion about home birth vs facility birth on a pregnancy help website. Projects in low-income countries are engaging patients in the conversation on how to improve safe and respectful care in maternity centers worldwide. Through a quick PubMed search, I can read about what women in Tanzania think of the quality of obstetric care they receive, yet I can’t find a systematic, large-scale effort to understand patient perceptions of quality and satisfaction with maternal care in the U.S… read more
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In the U.S., Black Mothers Need More Than Health Care
By Elizabeth Dawes Gay. Last month, over a thousand people gathered in Mexico City for the Global Maternal and Newborn Health Conference. Much of the discourse centered on improving health care for mothers and babies, as it tends to both globally and nationally in the United States. The conference also had an equity theme, which is a critical part of the conversation on maternal health in the United States. Without it, our opportunities to make real progress for all women are limited. In the United States, the pregnancy-related mortality rate in 2011 was 17.8 women per 100,000 live births. A closer look reveals that the pregnancy-related mortality rate for Black women is three times higher than that of white women… read more
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Join Us to Find Out What Explains the United States’ Dismal Maternal Mortality Rates
Join us in Washington, D.C. at the Wilson Center (and online!) next Thursday, November 19 from 10a-12p EST to hear from experts from the federal to local level about what is driving the rising maternal mortality ratio and why African American women are faring the worst. From 1990 to 2013, the maternal mortality more than doubled in the United States from 12 to 28 deaths per 100,000 live births. Globally, the United States ranks worse than most developed nations, at 65th in the world. Contributing to these dismal numbers are deep inequities in health across race, socioeconomic status, and geography. Black women die at a rate that ranges from three to four times the rate of their white counterparts, a difference that has remained largely unchanged over six decades… read more
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A Different Approach to Improving Childbirth
By Neel Shah, Associate Faculty at the Ariadne Labs for Health Systems Innovation When it comes to childbirth, the United States of America seems to combine the problems of the third world and the first world into a perfect storm. On one hand, 50% of U.S. counties lack a qualified childbirth provider. No midwife. No obstetrician. No family medicine doctor that delivers babies. In broad swaths of the country, women routinely drive several hours to get to a hospital with a maternity ward. Currently, childbirth is the most common reason for hospitalization in the United States, and cesarean delivery is now the most common major surgery performed on Americans (one out of every three births). At the same time, nearly half of cesareans performed in the United States appear to be unnecessary with significant consequences for the safety, affordability and experience of care… read more