Evidence-based approaches to improving maternal health outcomes

Mothers in the United States face a reality of worsening maternal mortality and morbidity rates, especially mothers in the BIPOC community. What factors are contributing to these maternal health outcomes inequities and how can we reverse this negative trend? In this Inside Angle episode, Dr. Steven Calvin, board-certified OB-GYN and maternal-fetal medicine physician, shares his more than 40 years of experience caring for moms and babies, and discusses ways maternal outcomes could be improved.

There are a lot of structural issues within the system. One of the things that's really shocking to many of us was that you could maybe think, well, some of the mothers in the African American community are coming from poorer socio-economic circumstances, and that's the contributor. But the reality is that college educated Black women actually have a higher rate of maternal morbidity and mortality as well. So it's not just social circumstances, income, education, it's a whole variety of things.

Steven Calvin, MD, maternal-fetal medicine physician, founder, Minnesota Birth Center