3 Ways COVID-19 is Accelerating Digital Maternity Care

COVID-19 infections are growing exponentially by the day, giving expectant parents three more things to worry about: receiving safe and adequate prenatal care, laboring by themselves in a capacity-constrained hospital, and maintaining or improving mental health in the precarious weeks around birth.

The United States was already well behind its peers in giving every baby and new mother a healthy start. The U.S. ranks 55th, just behind Russia, in maternal mortality, and 33rd out of 36 developed countries in infant mortality. The Medicaid Transformation Project (MTP) launched its Maternal and Infant Health Initiative last year in response to this national maternal health epidemic. More than 30 large health systems banded together to find and put forward solutions to this crisis in their communities. Those solutions are more important now than ever before, since the COVID-19 public health crisis is forcing providers to make quick moves to improve safety and the experience for expectant and new parents.