Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America pledges $100M to cut US maternal
mortality rate in half
[September 11, 2026]
By GLENN GAMBOA
Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America, a bipartisan campaign founded by
philanthropists Olivia and Tom Walton, announced a $100 million pledge
Thursday to make giving birth in the United States safer.
The five-year commitment aims to cut the maternal mortality rate in the
United States in half by 2031.
“For millions of moms in America, maternal health is bad and getting
worse,” Olivia Walton told The Associated Press in an interview.
“There’s just so much bipartisan consensus around wanting to fix this. I
really think the political will is there and part of our job is to help
surface that with an information campaign.”
According to the most recent data available, the United States has one
of the highest maternal mortality rates among wealthy nations. The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 688 people died in 2024
during pregnancy or shortly after giving birth. The maternal mortality
rate rose to 19 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2024, up from 18.6 the
year before.
Improving data collection and accelerating hospitals’ reporting of
deaths is an important pillar of the new Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies
America initiative, Walton said. The most recent state-level data on
maternal mortality is still from 2022, with annual totals based on
provisional data available through 2024.
“You can’t fix what you can’t measure,” she said, adding that the
Waltons' nonprofit Heartland Forward partnered with the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services in May to collect more data on maternal and
infant health outcomes from 220 hospitals around the country called the
Perinatal Improvement Collaborative.
The U.S. maternal mortality issue is ‘eminently solvable’
Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America President Dr. Neel Shah said that,
unlike many medical issues, maternal mortality is “eminently solvable.”
“The biggest cause of suffering isn’t a lack of knowledge,” he said.
“It’s a lack of execution on the knowledge… This is a matter of will.”
The initiative will focus on expanding access to maternal health in
rural areas, training midwives and expanding postpartum care, and
helping states use strategies that have proved successful, Shah said. He
points out that California has managed to reduce its maternal rate by
half by combining strategies with investments. He said New Jersey, which
previously ranked 47th among states in maternal mortality, has improved
its outcomes by focusing on the cities where the needs are greatest.
Walton said states are “in the driver’s seat” for making changes to
maternal and infant healthcare, in part because about 40% of births are
paid for by Medicaid.
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 “I’ve got blue-state solutions of
what works, red-state solutions of what works, and purple-state
solutions of what works,” she said. “It’s really possible.”
Using the $100 million initiative to generate more funding
For that reason, Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America plans to fund
these care improvements by focusing on states. Walton plans to use
the $100 million commitment as a way to encourage state governments
to match the nonprofit’s investment. She hopes that corporations and
other funders also contribute to the cause.
“Taking on risk and going first is a great use of philanthropic
capital,” she said. “The goal is to prove that this works and then
have state funding take it over.”
The focus on states, however, doesn’t mean the initiative won’t seek
federal solutions as well.
Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America is supporting bipartisan
Congressional legislation, including the Rural Obstetrics Readiness
Act and the NIH IMPROVE Act, which would expand access to maternal
care.
“It’s unacceptable that in 2026 in the U.S., maternal mortality
rates are moving in the wrong direction," Republican Sen. Katie
Britt, of Alabama, said in a statement. “It’s imperative we work
together across both the public and private sectors to reverse this
alarming trend.”
Democratic Sen. Cory Booker, of New Jersey, said poor maternal
health outcomes don’t just hurt families.
“The economic consequences are equally alarming,” Booker said in a
statement, estimating a cost of $165 billion each year.
Walton said the issue is a personal one for her and her husband,
Tom, grandson of Walmart founder Sam Walton, who live in Arkansas.
“I’m a mom myself and I just had three kids in the last eight
years,” she said. "I live in a state with the worst maternal
mortality in the country.”
However, she also believes the issue has broad, national
implications.
“I have an overarching belief that if you take care of mom, she’ll
take care of everything else,” Walton said. “Healthy moms lead to
healthy families. Healthy families lead to healthy communities.
Healthy communities lead to a healthy economy.”
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