Maternal Health News and Research

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Study provides insights into the challenges faced by American moms in the year after birth

Maternal mortality in the U.S. is on the rise and more than half of maternal deaths occur in the postpartum year.

6 Nov 2023

Pregnant women in blighted neighborhoods have higher testosterone levels, study finds

Pregnant women living in blighted neighborhoods with high levels of known stressors have higher levels of testosterone – the primary sex hormone in males -- which disrupt hormone regulation and may lead to life-threatening complications during and after childbirth, according to Rutgers research.

3 Nov 2023

Medical-legal partnerships can help improve maternal and infant health outcomes

Medical-legal partnerships (MLPs), which include a lawyer as part of a patient's care team, can help health systems address health-harming legal needs and better support pregnant and postpartum patients, according to a new research commentary published today in Obstetrics & Gynecology.

27 Oct 2023

Excessive weight gain during pregnancy linked to higher risk of death decades later

Pregnant people who gained more than the now-recommended amount of weight had a higher risk of death from heart disease or diabetes in the decades that followed, according to new analysis of 50 years of data published in The Lancet and led by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

19 Oct 2023

Biden pick to lead NIH finally has her day, but still gets caught up in drug price debate

A Senate committee finally held a hearing Wednesday on President Joe Biden's pick to lead the National Institutes of Health. But the panel's chair, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), was focused on drug prices — an issue over which the NIH has very little control.

19 Oct 2023

$12.5 million grant awarded to NYU Langone Health for developing digital tool to reduce maternal mortality

The maternal mortality rate in the United States, which has doubled in the past 20 years, is higher than in any other industrialized nation.

16 Oct 2023

Healthcare needs of pregnant adolescents is being ignored in low-and middle-income countries

The healthcare needs of pregnant adolescents will continue to be ignored in low-and middle-income countries (LMIC) unless there are major changes to healthcare delivery and frameworks, according to a new study by UCL and Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) researchers.

15 Oct 2023

Severe maternal morbidity, opioid use, and prior hospital care linked to pregnancy-associated deaths

The majority of research and public discourse on US maternal mortality focuses on pregnancy-related maternal deaths-;deaths caused or accelerated by a pregnancy-;rather than the broader category of pregnancy-associated maternal deaths, which are deaths from any cause during pregnancy or up to one year postpartum, including those that are pregnancy-related.

11 Oct 2023

Hybrid closed-loop technology could be game-changing for pregnant women with type 1 diabetes

For pregnant women with type 1 diabetes, a technology giving insulin doses as informed by a smartphone algorithm, helps them better manage their blood sugars, compared to traditional insulin pumps or multiple daily injections, according to a new randomized trial published in The New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) meeting.

10 Oct 2023

Mothers of color can’t see if providers have a history of mistreatment. Why not?

When Selam Solomon Caldwell and her husband learned she was pregnant last year, the stakes for finding the right OB-GYN felt high.

6 Oct 2023

Dads should be screened for postpartum depression, study suggests

Dads can suffer from postpartum depression, and a new pilot study at the University of Illinois Chicago suggests they can and should be screened for the condition.

5 Oct 2023

Gender inequalities worsen women’s access to cancer prevention, detection and care

Unequal power dynamics across society have resounding negative impacts on how women interact with cancer prevention, care and treatment.

26 Sep 2023

$1.47 million grant awarded to TTUHSC for maternal health research

According to a study recently published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, maternal morbidity and mortality rates in Texas during the last two decades have more than doubled from 1999 (10.3 deaths per 100,000 births) to 2019 (21.9 deaths per 100,000 births).

21 Sep 2023

With its two doctors planning to retire, an Alabama town patches together health care options

Charity Hodge had mixed feelings when she spotted a Facebook post announcing that her longtime primary care doctor was ready to retire after decades of serving their rural community.

19 Sep 2023

Racial and ethnic inequities are substantial in type 2 diabetes after gestational diabetes, study shows

Racial and ethnic inequities in diabetes have been established following gestational diabetes, but these inequities are substantial and have been an overlooked facet of maternal health equity, according to a new study by epidemiologist Teresa Janevic, PhD, associate professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Until now there was limited research on racial and ethnic disparities in type 2 diabetes after gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM).

8 Sep 2023

Does the Mediterranean diet meet nutritional requirements during pregnancy?

Whether adopting a healthy diet, such as the MedDiet, during pregnancy could meet the unique macro- and micronutrient requirements of pregnancy.

4 Sep 2023

Is paternal depression associated with subsequent offspring depression?

Researchers conducted a large-scale systematic review of published observational studies investigating depression in fathers and children.

22 Aug 2023

Tulane, Ochsner Health and RH Impact awarded $16.5 million grant to address Louisiana's high maternal mortality rate

Tulane University, Ochsner Health and the community nonprofit RH Impact have been awarded a seven-year, $16.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to establish a research center of excellence focused on finding solutions to address Louisiana's disproportionately high maternal mortality rate.

18 Aug 2023

NIH awards $24 million to establish Maternal Health Research Centers of Excellence

The National Institutes of Health has awarded $24 million in first-year funding to establish Maternal Health Research Centers of Excellence. Part of NIH's Implementing a Maternal health and PRegnancy Outcomes Vision for Everyone (IMPROVE) initiative, the centers will develop and evaluate innovative approaches to reduce pregnancy-related complications and deaths and promote maternal health equity.

17 Aug 2023

Community health workers boost child vaccination rates in remote Madagascar

Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world and access to health care is limited for many people.

10 Aug 2023