· Executive Brief
Maternal Health Awareness Day 2026
Hold the care system together before, during, and after pregnancy.
Holding ground means keeping reliable care within reach.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists observes Maternal Health Awareness Day nationally on January 23. For its fifth observance in 2026, ACOG selected the theme Holding Ground on Maternal Health and called for continued commitment to respectful, evidence-based care.
For healthcare executives, the observance is an operational checkpoint. The system should be able to recognize concern, respond at the right level, transfer responsibility clearly, support care after discharge, and learn from both outcomes and patient experience.
NCHS counted 649 U.S. deaths from maternal causes in its final 2024 data. Source
deaths per 100,000 live births in 2024. The change from 18.6 in 2023 was not statistically significant. Source
deaths per 100,000 live births for non-Hispanic Black women in 2024, significantly higher than reported White, Hispanic, and Asian rates. Source
Definition note: NCHS maternal mortality covers deaths from maternal causes during pregnancy or within 42 days after pregnancy. CDC pregnancy-related mortality surveillance uses a different definition that extends through one year. These measures should not be treated as interchangeable.
Make every concern lead to a visible next action.
The route begins before a crisis. Define how teams prepare, listen, recognize urgency, escalate, connect services, follow through, and learn. Local clinical protocols must determine the specific response.
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Prepare
Make contact routes, clinical coverage, escalation criteria, and transfer options easy to find.
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Listen
Document the patient’s concern in their own words and confirm that it has been understood.
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Recognize
Use current clinical protocols to identify urgent warning signs and risk that needs review.
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Escalate
Activate the appropriate clinician, response team, or higher level of care without an ownership gap.
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Connect
Coordinate obstetric, emergency, primary, specialty, behavioral health, and community services as needed.
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Follow
Confirm the next contact, unresolved needs, responsible team, and a route back into care.
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Learn
Review outcomes, delays, near misses, patient experience, and differences across populations.
Operating rule: a handoff is incomplete until the receiving team accepts responsibility and the patient knows what happens next.
Watch the points where continuity can fail.
A small dashboard should connect process, patient experience, and outcomes. Each measure needs a definition, accountable owner, review interval, and threshold for action.
Access and reach
Track time to prenatal, specialty, behavioral health, and postpartum contact, including failed outreach and closed services.
Concern response
Track maternal concerns, warning-sign escalation, response time, disposition, and repeat contacts before resolution.
Transition closure
Track accepted referrals, discharge communication, medication access, scheduled follow-up, and unresolved needs.
Equity and respect
Review access, response, experience, severe morbidity, and mortality measures across relevant populations and locations.
Transfer the concern, context, and ownership together.
CDC advises immediate medical care for urgent maternal warning signs during pregnancy and in the year after pregnancy. Organizations should translate that public guidance into locally approved clinical workflows and make the route clear to patients and staff.
This workflow supports operations. It does not replace clinical assessment or emergency protocols.
- 01
Receive and acknowledge
Capture the concern, pregnancy or postpartum context, location, contact information, and immediate communication needs.
- 02
Apply the approved response pathway
Use the organization’s clinical protocols to determine urgency and activate the right team or destination.
- 03
Make ownership explicit
Name the responsible clinician or team, confirm acceptance, and communicate the expected next action.
- 04
Carry essential context forward
Transfer relevant history, current concern, actions taken, pending results, barriers, preferences, and communication needs.
- 05
Close and learn
Verify that the connection occurred, respond to failed handoffs, and review recurring delays or inequities.
Measure whether the route stays intact.
Use operational measures to find friction and guide improvement. Measures should be locally defined, clinically reviewed, stratified when appropriate, and interpreted with denominator and data-quality context.
Swipe or use arrow keys to view all columns.
| Domain | Measure | Executive question |
|---|---|---|
| Access | Time to first appropriate contact and percentage of requests completed without avoidable rerouting | Can patients reach the right level of care? |
| Concern response | Time from documented concern to accountable clinical response, segmented by channel and setting | Where does listening fail to become action? |
| Escalation | Percentage of locally defined urgent escalations completed within the approved response standard | Does urgency survive the handoff? |
| Continuity | Accepted referrals and follow-up contacts with a documented owner and next action | Who remains responsible after transition? |
| Experience | Patient-reported respect, communication, involvement, and confidence in the next step | Do patients feel heard and know what comes next? |
| Equity | Access, process, experience, morbidity, and mortality measures reviewed across relevant groups and locations | Who experiences a different route through the same system? |
Turn one day of awareness into a reliability cycle.
Choose one cross-setting maternal-care route, make its current state visible, and improve one measurable failure mode. Clinical leaders, patients, and community partners should help shape the work.
See the full route
- Name an executive sponsor and clinical and operational owners.
- Map entry points, escalation paths, transfers, discharge, and postpartum follow-up.
- Review urgent-warning-sign materials, language access, and after-hours instructions.
- Identify recurring failed handoffs and data gaps.
Strengthen one handoff
- Define acceptance, ownership, and required information.
- Test the workflow across obstetric, emergency, primary, specialty, and behavioral health settings.
- Include patient and frontline-team feedback.
- Create an escalation route for unavailable or failed connections.
Review and adapt
- Launch a small dashboard with approved definitions.
- Review delays, repeat contacts, failed transitions, experience, and inequities.
- Correct one high-frequency failure with an owner and deadline.
- Set a recurring maternal-care reliability review.
Hold the ground between concern and care.
Maternal Health Awareness Day gives leaders a focused test of system reliability: when a patient raises a concern, can the organization listen, respond, connect services, maintain ownership, and follow through? Progress requires evidence, respectful care, transparent measures, and steady attention after the observance ends.
Official guidance and current data
- ACOG: Maternal Health Awareness Day 2026
- CDC/NCHS: Maternal Mortality Rates in the United States, 2024
- CDC: Preventing Pregnancy-Related Deaths
- CDC Hear Her: Urgent Maternal Warning Signs and Symptoms
- CDC: Perinatal Quality Collaboratives
- HRSA: National Maternal Mental Health Hotline
Urgent support: If someone is experiencing an urgent maternal warning sign during pregnancy or within the year after pregnancy, CDC advises getting medical care immediately. Call 911 for an immediate threat to life. For free, confidential maternal mental health support, call or text 1-833-TLC-MAMA (1-833-852-6262). The hotline is not an emergency response service.
Reviewed August 2026. Final national maternal mortality data are for 2024. This executive brief supports organizational planning and education. It does not diagnose, treat, establish a clinical standard, replace individualized clinical care, or supersede emergency protocols, professional judgment, applicable law, or local policy.