As Maternal Mortality Spikes in the U.S., Who is Stepping Up for Mothers?

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America has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed countries, a rising health crisis that’s driven by inequities of race, place and socioeconomic status. Expectant mothers in the U.S. today are twice as likely to die in childbirth as their own mothers were a generation ago. 

The effects of racial inequities are clear. Data shows that death rates from delivery complications double and triple for Black and Indigenous women compared to their white counterparts. Tragically, those numbers parallel infant mortality rates; twice as many Black babies fail to reach their first birthdays. 

Place is also a factor. The incidence of maternal mortality rises in low-income areas, where mothers often have limited access to quality perinatal and postpartum care. And the rates in some states tower over others. Louisiana has a mortality rate of 58 mothers for every 100,000 deliveries compared to Vermont and Delaware, with none.

The pandemic ballooned risk factors, as pressures mounted on healthcare systems and access to care was limited. A St. George’s University analysis of 40 studies in 17 countries shows that stillborn and maternal mortality rates rose by a third. 

It doesn’t have to be this way. With the right care during pregnancy, delivery and the postpartum period, maternal death is almost completely preventable. Many interventions belong at the government level. But across the country, philanthropy is also playing a role to increase healthy outcomes for mothers and newborns. 

From a California couple that invested big in Silicon Valley mothers to a D.C.-based foundation that made maternal health a centerpiece of its local initiatives, these funders have invested in equitable care for American mothers. 

A California couple 

In February, Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie donated $80 million to advance the care of mothers and babies at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and Stanford University’s School of Medicine—the single largest donation from individuals in the hospital’s history.

A leading academic medical center affiliated with Stanford University and Stanford Medicine, the hospital sits at the center of the only healthcare network in the Bay area that’s exclusively dedicated to pediatric and obstetric care, and is one of only 10 children’s hospitals nationwide named to U.S. News & World Report’s honor roll. 

Fifty million of the gift will help transform the first floor of the hospital’s main building with a state-of-the-art labor and delivery unit and a dedicated antepartum unit for mothers who require hospitalization prior to delivery. The remaining $30 million will fund a maternal-fetal medicine program at the School of Medicine. 

The support is a reflection of their ties to place and care. 

Bruce Dunlevie is a co-founder of the San Francisco-based venture capital firm Benchmark, which focuses on early-stage investing in social, mobile, local and cloud companies. Since its founding in 1995, Benchmark has found success with big names like eBay, Uber, Instagram and Dropbox. 

As deciding factors, Bruce Dunlevie cited the hospital’s close proximity to Silicon Valley, where the family has lived and worked for decades, and its intersection with their own lives, saying family members have been “grateful beneficiaries of its excellent care” on a number of occasions. 

Philanthropist Elizabeth Dunlevie serves as board chair of the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health, and serves on the Packard Children’s Hospital Board. When announcing the gift, she said her journey with the hospital started as the mother of a child who needed life-saving care, and she expressed deep appreciation for the vision and quality care that was “there for us when we needed it.”

A Cleveland couple

Other prominent individuals are boosting maternal health in their own backyards. Cleveland-based University Hospitals (UH) recently announced a $7.5 million gift from board member Steve Potash, CEO of the digital reading platform OverDrive, and his wife Loree Potash. 

Funds will establish a new named center for women and newborns at UH Ahuja Medical Center that will bring the collaborative care of two network hospitals to the campus on the city’s East Side. The investment provides for a neonatal intensive care unit, full labor and delivery services, and maternal-fetal care. Ten thousand babies are born across the UH system each year.

Steve and Loree Potash also addressed a common problem in information delivery by piloting a literacy program at UH Rainbow Babies & Children Hospital. Aimed at the two-thirds of Cleveland residents who are functionally illiterate, the program is expected to expand to all locations in 2022. 

Making every mother count

Like Elizabeth Dunlevie, supermodel Christy Turlington’s own experience with childbirth informed an interest in helping mothers. In 2010, Turlington released the documentary “No Woman, No Cry,” and founded Every Mother Counts, a foundation with the goal of making “pregnancy and childbirth safe for everyone, everywhere.” 

Its reach is both global and domestic. Globally, EMC’s work includes funding birth attendants in Bangladesh, Indigenous midwives in Guatemala, and skilled care in Haiti. In the U.S., the focus is on expanding quality, culturally appropriate care via midwives and community-based doulas; advocating policy change with system decision-makers and practice leaders; and educational storytelling. 

Since inception, the organization has reportedly impacted nearly 1 million lives, and invested $16.2 million in public education, community engagement, and grants that delivered skilled care to more than 371,000 mothers. 

Supporting D.C. mothers

On the foundation end, the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation considers its investments in maternal health part of supporting its home community, Washington, D.C. Clark funds local healthcare providers to boost the quality of perinatal and early pediatric healthcare, and strengthens collaborations between local hospitals and healthcare providers. 

MedStar Health calls the foundation’s recent gift of $27 million its largest to date. The commitment will fund a D.C. Safe Babies Safe Moms initiative that addresses a range of services for pregnant women, infants and toddlers, including diabetes control and mental health counseling for expecting moms, breastfeeding support, health screenings and nutrition programs. All will primarily serve the predominantly African American residents of wards 5, 7 and 8, where stillborn deliveries and infant mortality rates are nearly four times higher than for white mothers. 

A multinational’s support spans the country

As previously covered in Inside Philanthropy, Merck, the New Jersey-based global pharma giant, is a leader in funding maternal health. In the fall of 2011, the company created Merck for Mothers, a $500 million initiative that works to ensure that no woman has to die giving life, both in the U.S. and globally. 

Global work focuses on India, Kenya and Nigeria. Stateside, Merck for Mothers finds community-based solutions through Safer Childbirth Cities, which prioritizes communities with high morbidity and mortality rates, and projects that improve health outcomes while boosting racial equity. 

Safer Childbirth Cities stands out for taking a collaborative approach to achieving its goals, adding the resources and expertise of leading foundations and private sector partners—and a lead nonprofit partner on each project. 

Co-funders include the Tulsa-based George Kaiser Family Foundation, which funds maternal health to give young children a “strong and healthy beginning,” the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Michigan, and the Yellow Chair Foundation, the grantmaking vehicle of philanthropists Angela Filo and David Filo, co-founder of Yahoo. 

While funders take different approaches, there seems to be common ground in the way they recognize the role of maternal health in building equitable futures. 

Said Elizabeth Dunlevie, “Through our involvement at Packard Children’s Hospital and our family’s own experience, we’ve seen that child health often starts with maternal health. Caring for expectant mothers creates healthier futures for kids, and we want to ensure that all mothers in our community have access to the same outstanding care and patient experience.”