In June 2022, the White House released a blueprint for addressing the maternal health crisis in the United States (White House, 2022) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2022) published recommendations for state strategies for prevention of pregnancy-related maternal deaths (Table). The maternal mortality rate in the United States is far higher than other peer countries (Tikkanen et al., 2020) and has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic (Thoma & Declercq, 2022). There is significant harmonization between the documents, both identifying the same long-standing problems such as racism and inequity in care of minoritized childbearing populations, challenges in access to care, women and their support persons not full partners in decision-making, inadequate insurance coverage for the full year postpartum, lack of diversity of the perinatal workforce, and difficulties in data collection to realize the complete scope of the crisis. Similar plans have been put forth in the recent past (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2020; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2020), but meaningful action has been elusive. Review the new documents and see what you can do to become active participants in much-needed change for maternity care in the United States.

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