Holding Ground on Maternal Health: What Maternal Health Awareness Day Means in 2026
January 23 marks Maternal Health Awareness Day, an annual observance that confronts an uncomfortable truth: pregnancy and childbirth in the United States remain far more dangerous than they should be. For a country that spends more on healthcare per capita than any other developed nation, our maternal mortality rates tell a different story.
This year’s theme, “Holding Ground on Maternal Health,” chosen by American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, isn’t about celebrating motherhood or sharing feel-good statistics. It's about reckoning with the preventable deaths, the widening disparities, and the systemic failures that make bringing life into the world a matter of survival for too many women.
The Numbers Tell a Grim Story
The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed nations. Maternal deaths surged dramatically from 658 in 2018 to a devastating peak of 1,205 in 2021—the highest in over 50 years. While COVID-19 played a significant role in that spike, the underlying crisis predates the pandemic.
The overall numbers have improved since 2021, dropping to 817 deaths in 2022 and 669 in 2023. But those improvements haven't been shared equally, and the racial disparities have actually worsened.
Black women face a maternal mortality rate of 50.3 deaths per 100,000 live births—more than three times higher than white women at 14.5 per 100,000. Hispanic women have a rate of 12.4 per 100,000, and Asian women 10.7 per 100,000.
What's especially troubling is that the gap has widened. In 2021 and 2022, Black women died at rates about 2.6 times higher than white women. By 2023, that disparity increased to 3.5 times higher. As the pandemic eased and overall maternal deaths declined, white and Hispanic women saw significant decreases, while rates for Black women remained essentially unchanged.
What makes these statistics even more troubling is that they're largely preventable. According to research from organizations like the CDC Foundation and March of Dimes, up to 80% of pregnancy-related deaths could be avoided with timely intervention, proper screening, and continuity of care.
The problem isn't a lack of medical knowledge. We know what causes maternal deaths. We know how to prevent them. What we're missing is the infrastructure, the prioritization, and often the will to make sure every pregnant person has access to the care they need.
Most Deaths Happen After Delivery
Here's something that surprises many people: the majority of maternal deaths don't occur during labor or delivery. They happen in the weeks and months after birth.
The postpartum period has long been treated as an afterthought in American healthcare. A single six-week check-up became the standard decades ago, and for many women, that's still all they get. But complications like blood clots, infections, uncontrolled high blood pressure, and mental health crises don't always show up on a predictable timeline.
Hemorrhage, hypertensive disorders like preeclampsia and eclampsia, cardiovascular conditions, infections, blood clots, and mental health emergencies including suicide are among the leading causes of maternal death. Many of these conditions can develop or worsen well after a woman leaves the hospital.
Despite this, insurance coverage for comprehensive postpartum care remains inconsistent. Many providers don't have systems in place to track patients after discharge or follow up when warning signs appear. Women are often left to self-monitor and self-advocate at a time when they're exhausted, overwhelmed, and adjusting to life with a newborn.
Maternity Care Deserts Are Expanding
If you live in a major city, it might be hard to imagine not having access to a hospital with a maternity ward. But for over 2 million women across the United States, that's reality. They live in counties with no hospital offering obstetric care, no birth center, and no OB-GYN.
Rural communities have been hit hardest. Since 2022, more than 100 hospitals across the United States have closed their obstetric units. Maternity wards across the South and Midwest have shuttered at alarming rates over the past decade, driven by financial pressures, staffing shortages, and consolidation of healthcare systems.
The economics are brutal: maternity units must operate 24/7, but reimbursement rates don't cover costs, especially for smaller community hospitals. Women are traveling hours to deliver their babies, sometimes delivering in emergency rooms that aren't equipped for childbirth.
The Maternal Health Workforce Crisis
The maternal health workforce is shrinking, and it's not just about hospital closures. Multiple factors are driving providers out of the field:
Nearly 30% of OB-GYNs report experiencing burnout, and 23% deal with both burnout and depression. Forty percent say their work-life balance has gotten worse over the past three years. The administrative burden—excessive paperwork, charting requirements, and bureaucratic tasks—compounds the stress of an already demanding specialty.
But burnout isn't the only problem. There simply aren't enough training spots to meet demand. In the 2025 Match, 2,151 applicants competed for only 1,587 OB-GYN residency positions, leaving 564 qualified applicants without a spot. Even if every position were filled, we still wouldn't have enough OB-GYNs, midwives, and labor and delivery nurses to safely staff maternity units across the country.
The shortage is most acute in underserved and rural communities, where it's harder to recruit providers. And the underlying issue goes deeper: the care of women and children has been chronically undervalued in the broader healthcare system—underfunded in reimbursement rates and overlooked in policy priorities.
This creates a dangerous gap. When care is far away or providers are stretched too thin, women miss appointments. Complications go undetected. Risk factors pile up. And when something goes wrong, there's no safety net close by.
Mental Health Is Part of Maternal Health
Postpartum depression and anxiety affect about 1 in 7 new mothers, but many cases go undiagnosed or untreated. Postpartum psychosis is rarer but can be life-threatening when it occurs.
Suicide and overdose are among the leading causes of death in the first year after giving birth. Yet mental health screening during pregnancy and the postpartum period remains inconsistent across the country. Access to treatment is even more fragmented.
There's still stigma around admitting you're struggling after having a baby. New mothers are expected to be glowing, grateful, and bonded to their infants. When reality doesn't match that picture, many women suffer in silence rather than ask for help.
Supporting maternal health means recognizing that emotional and psychological well-being are just as critical as physical recovery. Screening needs to happen routinely, not as an afterthought. Treatment needs to be accessible, affordable, and free of judgment.
How Women Are Treated Matters
One of the most well-documented factors in maternal mortality is the quality of care women receive—and specifically, whether they're listened to and believed when they raise concerns.
Study after study has shown that Black and Indigenous women report being dismissed, ignored, or disbelieved when they talk about pain or symptoms during pregnancy and after birth. This isn't anecdotal. It's measurable, it's pervasive, and it's deadly.
Even high-profile cases have highlighted this issue. Serena Williams, one of the greatest athletes in the world, had to fight to get her medical team to take her concerns seriously after giving birth, despite her history of blood clots. If someone with her resources and platform faces that kind of dismissal, what happens to women without those advantages?
Culturally competent, trauma-informed, patient-centered care isn't optional. It's essential. Women need to be treated with dignity and respect, especially when they're at their most vulnerable. Their lived experiences and knowledge of their own bodies should be valued, not questioned.
What You Can Actually Do
Maternal Health Awareness Day isn't just about raising awareness—it's about turning that awareness into action.
Advocate for policy change. Support Medicaid expansion, paid family leave, and federal and state legislation that funds maternal health programs and addresses racial disparities. The Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act represents comprehensive legislation specifically designed to tackle maternal health inequities. Contact your representatives. Make your voice heard.
Support community organizations. Many grassroots groups are filling gaps in the healthcare system by providing doula services, prenatal education, lactation support, and postpartum care—especially in underserved communities. Organizations like the National Birth Equity Collaborative, Black Mamas Matter Alliance, March of Dimes, and local community health centers often operate on limited budgets and rely on donations and volunteers.
Educate yourself and others. Share accurate information about maternal health. Challenge myths. Talk about the realities of pregnancy and postpartum recovery, not just the sanitized version that gets posted on social media. Reliable sources include the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the CDC Foundation's Hear Her Campaign, and organizations centered on birth equity.
Amplify lived experiences. Listen to mothers, especially those from marginalized communities. Their stories reveal what data alone cannot. They show where systems fail, where support is lacking, and where change is desperately needed.
Stories Behind the Statistics
Behind every maternal mortality statistic is a person. A mother who didn't come home from the hospital. A family forever changed by a loss that should never have happened. A survivor who fought through complications that proper care could have prevented.
We need to hear from OB-GYNs who are tracking patterns in their patients and seeing firsthand where the system breaks down. From midwives expanding access in rural areas where hospitals have closed. From doulas supporting families through traumatic births. From mothers who've had to fight to be believed when they knew something was wrong.
These stories don't just humanize the crisis. They show us where change is possible and who's already doing the work to make it happen.
Holding the Ground
This Maternal Health Awareness Day, we're holding ground.
We're not backing down on the demand for equitable, accessible, respectful care for every pregnant and postpartum person in this country. We're not accepting maternal mortality rates that belong in the last century. We're not pretending that awareness alone will solve this crisis.
Mothers deserve better. Families deserve better. Communities deserve better.
And we have the knowledge, the tools, and the resources to make it happen. What we need now is the commitment to follow through.
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