Maternal Health Awareness Day: January 23
According to the CDC, over 80% of maternal deaths in the US are preventable. We must first know why they’re happening.
ACOG's wants to bring awareness about the underlying causes and identifying root causes and create solutions to avoid poor maternal health outcomes.
Observing Maternal Health Awareness Day 2023
The focus is on the two leading causes of maternal deaths identified by maternal mortality review committees and recently reported by the CDC: mental health conditions and cardiac and coronary conditions.
Mental Health Conditions
For the first time, mental health conditions were reported as a leading underlying cause of pregnancy-related deaths among white, Hispanic, and American Indian and Alaska Native populations. ACOG will raise awareness about perinatal mental health; share resources for patients; and highlight clinician resources aimed at improving patient screening, diagnosis, and referral, such as our perinatal mental health tool kit and AIM's upcoming perinatal mental health patient safety bundle.
Cardiac and Coronary Conditions
Cardiac and coronary conditions, in addition to cardiomyopathy, are the primary causes of death among Black people mostly during the postpartum period rather than during labor and delivery itself. ACOG will raise awareness and emphasize the need for ongoing coordinated care and health care coverage for a full year after delivery for postpartum people.
About Maternal Health Awareness Day
In 2016, the New Jersey Section of ACOG joined the Tara Hansen Foundation; the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and the New Jersey Medical School; the New Jersey Obstetrical and Gynecological Society; the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses; and the New Jersey Affiliate of the American College of Nurse-Midwives to request the establishment of a Maternal Health Awareness Day in New Jersey to raise the level of awareness of all New Jersey residents of maternal health issues. This effort came to legislative fruition in 2017, when New Jersey celebrated its first Maternal Health Awareness Day.
Enthusiasm for a District III-wide Maternal Health Awareness Day prompted all Sections within District III to begin educational programs to promote community, patient, and other stakeholder awareness of maternal health risks. Since 2021, ACOG has celebrated Maternal Health Awareness Day at a national level, joined by partners from across the country.
#MaternalHealthAwarenessDay 2023
References:
https://www.acog.org/advocacy/policy-priorities/maternal-mortality-prevention/maternal-health-awareness-day
