Estimated Publication Date: July 25, 2022 First Estimated Application Due Date: November 30,  2022 Purpose As part of the Implementing a Maternal health and PRegnancy Outcomes Vision for Everyone (IMPROVE) initiative, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, on behalf of the NIH Maternal Mortality Task Force, intends to promote a new initiative by…

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In the United States, more than 20% of deaths during pregnancy and the first year after childbirth are due to drug use, suicide, or homicide, suggests a study funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).1 The number of pregnancy-associated deaths from these causes increased between 2010 and…

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Shutdowns and restrictions early in the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted contraceptive services, abortion access, and other sexual and reproductive health care across the globe, new research shows. In many places, providers shifted toward telemedicine; in the United States, more women received medication abortions. But women from disadvantaged groups faced more obstacles to receiving care as the…

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Infants born during the pandemic—regardless of whether their mothers had COVID-19 during pregnancy—scored slightly lower on certain tests of neurodevelopment at six months old, compared to a similar group of infants born before the pandemic, according to a study by researchers at Columbia University and the Columbia Population Research Center.1 The findings suggest that children…

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Drug- and alcohol-related death rates among pregnant and recently pregnant American women increased sharply between 2015 and 2019, faster than among women of childbearing age in general, new research shows. “We need to broaden our view and look beyond complications of childbirth and pregnancy to fully understand the threats to recently pregnant women’s lives,” says…

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In the United States, Black-white disparities in maternal mortality—deaths related to pregnancy or childbirth—may be larger than previously reported, new research shows. Closing the gap involves addressing structural racism—that is, those aspects of social, political, economic, and health care systems that reinforce inequity, researchers say. Because pregnancy is riskier to women’s health than abortion, state…

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