Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America, a bipartisan campaign founded by philanthropists Olivia and Tom Walton, announced Thursday a $100 million pledge aimed at improving maternal health outcomes in the United States.
The five-year commitment intends to cut the U.S. maternal mortality rate in half by 2031. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. has one of the highest maternal mortality rates among wealthy nations. Provisional data indicated 688 deaths in 2024 during pregnancy or shortly after birth, with the mortality rate rising to 19 deaths per 100,000 live births, up from 18.6 the previous year. The most recent state-level data available is from 2022.
Olivia Walton stated that improving data collection and accelerating the reporting of maternal deaths is a key component of the initiative. "You can’t fix what you can’t measure," she said, noting that their nonprofit, Heartland Forward, partnered with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in May to gather more data from 220 hospitals through the Perinatal Improvement Collaborative.
Dr. Neel Shah, president of Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America, described maternal mortality as an "eminently solvable" issue, attributing the problem more to a lack of execution than a lack of knowledge. The initiative plans to focus on expanding access to maternal care in rural areas, increasing the training and availability of midwives, enhancing postpartum care, and disseminating successful state-level strategies.
Shah highlighted California's success in reducing its maternal mortality rate by half through combined strategies and investments, and New Jersey's improvement by focusing on high-need urban areas.
Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America intends to leverage its funding to encourage state governments to match its investment, with the goal of proving the effectiveness of specific interventions and transitioning them to state funding. Approximately 40% of births are covered by Medicaid, making state-level action particularly impactful.
Walton expressed optimism about bipartisan consensus on the issue, stating that effective solutions exist in states across the political spectrum. "I’ve got blue-state solutions of what works, red-state solutions of what works, and purple-state solutions of what works," she said. "It’s really possible."
The initiative will also support federal legislative efforts, including the Rural Obstetrics Readiness Act and the NIH IMPROVE Act, which aim to broaden access to maternal care. Republican Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama and Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey have both voiced support for bipartisan efforts to address the rising maternal mortality rates. Booker cited the economic consequences, estimating an annual cost of $165 billion.
Olivia Walton, a mother of three, shared that the issue is personal, as she lives in Arkansas, a state with a high maternal mortality rate. She believes that improving maternal health has broader implications, stating, "Healthy moms lead to healthy families. Healthy families lead to healthy communities. Healthy communities lead to a healthy economy."