Improving Respectful Maternal Care Through Hear Her®

Healthcare systems have an opportunity to create and strengthen a culture of patient-centered maternity care, with all healthcare staff playing a role in improving patient experiences. Too many women report negative experiences during maternity care: in a 2023 survey, one in five women overall said they were mistreated while receiving maternity care, with about 30 percent of Black, Hispanic and multiracial women reporting mistreatment. Almost half of the women surveyed avoided asking questions or sharing concerns during their maternity care.

Respectful maternity care promotes conditions that improve maternal health outcomes for prenatal, birthing and post-partum women. The CDC Foundation is working to strengthen or expand efforts to improve respectful maternity care practices by partnering with Perinatal Quality Collaboratives (PQCs) across the United States. PQCs are networks of multidisciplinary teams made up of clinicians, providers, public health leaders, national and community organizations, patients, families and others who work together on plans to improve health outcomes for pregnant women and infants in the U.S.

Through this program, CDC Foundation will help build the capacity of a select group of PQCs to implement data-driven quality improvement initiatives to address respectful maternal care and utilize resources from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Hear Her® maternal health communication campaign, designed to raise awareness of potentially life-threatening warning signs during and after pregnancy. 

The following organizations have been selected to receive funding for this project: 
•    Arizona Perinatal Trust (APT)
•    Minnesota Perinatal Quality Collaborative (MNPQC)
•    Narrative Nation, Inc. (partnering with PQCs in Illinois, Louisiana and Tennessee)
•    Oregon Perinatal Collaborative (OPC)
•    Virginia Neonatal Perinatal Collaborative (VNPC)
•    National Institute for Children’s Health Quality (NICHQ)

Every state, as well as Washington, DC, has a PQC that meets to identify healthcare processes and clinical practices that could be strengthened and then begins to implement quality improvement (QI) initiatives, using the best available methods to effect change as quickly as possible. QI initiatives advance evidence-based clinical practices within healthcare centers and systems across states and across the nation.  Learn more about how PQCs are working together to improve maternal outcomes.