Sponsors (214)
Official title: To end preventable maternal mortality, severe maternal morbidity, and maternal health disparities in the United States, and for other purposes.
Introduced March 18, 2026 by Lauren Underwood · Last progress March 18, 2026
The bill channels substantial federal funding and a coordinated multiagency effort to reduce maternal deaths and address disparities—expanding services, data, and workforce capacity—while imposing significant new costs, administrative and privacy burdens, and leaving unresolved challenges in scale, sustainability, and implementation.
Pregnant and postpartum people (especially in high‑burden communities) will benefit from a coordinated federal strategy and new funding streams that align clinical, housing, transportation, and environmental policies to reduce maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity.
Pregnant and postpartum individuals from underserved and high‑risk groups will get expanded access to maternal mental health and substance‑use disorder screening, treatment, referrals, and a growing perinatal behavioral health workforce through grants, training, and scholarships.
Researchers, public health agencies, and state/Tribal maternal mortality review committees will receive substantially more surveillance, data collection, and research funding (including NIH, CDC, and MMRC support) to identify causes of maternal deaths and target interventions.
Taxpayers and the federal budget will face substantial new and recurring costs from numerous authorized grant and research programs (many totaling tens to hundreds of millions per year), creating budget tradeoffs or pressures for offsets.
State agencies, hospitals, providers, and community grantees will incur significant new administrative, reporting, compliance, and training burdens to apply for funds, meet disaggregated reporting requirements, and implement program standards—potentially diverting resources from direct services.
Expanded data collection, digital monitoring, and more frequent public reporting raise privacy and data‑security risks for patients and the potential for reidentification or provider identification in small communities if safeguards are inadequate.
Based on analysis of 17 sections of legislative text.
Builds a federal maternal‑health strategy: creates task forces, expands WIC, funds grants, research, Medicaid/CHIP demos, mental‑health programs, and improved data/reporting to reduce maternal deaths and disparities.
Creates a cross‑agency federal effort to prevent maternal deaths, reduce severe maternal illness, and shrink racial and geographic maternal health disparities by funding research, grants, provider training, community programs, and data/reporting. It requires HHS to convene a task force, expands WIC eligibility, creates grant programs for community‑based maternal health equity and maternal mental health, sets up Medicaid/CHIP payment demo projects, funds NIH research and CDC surveillance, and imposes new standards for respectful, culturally and linguistically congruent care. The bill directs multiple agencies (HHS, USDA, VA, DOJ/BOP, CMS, CDC, NIH, EPA and others) to develop guidance, award competitive grants, run pilot programs, and improve data collection and public education; it also authorizes and increases targeted appropriations for several programs through FY2032 and sets application, reporting, and evaluation requirements for grantees and demonstrations.