Improving the Health of Mothers in Georgia

Tens of thousands of pregnancy-related complications occur in the US each year, and stark disparities exist in maternal health outcomes, depending on one’s racial and ethnic group.

Maternal health is one of the major themes in the Woodruff Health Sciences Center strategic plan. Finding innovative ways to reduce pregnancy-related complications and deaths and to promote maternal health equity is the aim of a new center that includes researchers from Morehouse School of Medicine and Rollins School of Public Health. The Maternal Health Research Center of Excellence is one of 10 research centers chosen for a National Institutes of Health initiative. Researchers will collaborate with a robust network of community partners to translate research into interventions.

Hannah Cooper, Rollins chair in Substance Use Disorders, says maternal behavioral health conditions such as anxiety, depression, and birth-related PTSD are the most common complications of pregnancy and childbirth. One in five women is affected, with a disproportionate impact on Black women.

“Pregnant and postpartum women who are Black live at the intersection of three of the gravest public health threats confronting the US: the maternal morbidity and mortality epidemic; the behavioral health crisis; and intersectional discrimination,” says Cooper.

 

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