NICHD CHALLENGE AWARD-HHD CAOD-2021-NICHD-0001-MATERNAL MORBIDITY CHALLENGE

Investigators

Abstract

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announces its Decoding Maternal Morbidity Data Challenge to help advance research on maternal health and promote healthy pregnancies. The Challenge goal is to devise new ways of analyzing the large dataset from its Nulliparous Pregnancy Outcomes Study: Monitoring Mothers-to-be (nuMoM2b) to identify factors that impact maternal morbidity and severe maternal morbidity so that clinicians can more quickly and accurately identify and treat pregnancy-related conditions and prevent severe illness or death for a pregnant person. Each year in the United States, more than 50,000 women experience severe maternal morbidity (SMM), unexpected outcomes of labor and delivery that result in significant short- or long-term health consequences, and many more experience maternal morbidity (MM), unexpected outcomes of labor and delivery that affect women?s health but are less significant. In addition, the United States has the highest ratio of maternal mortality among developed nations; according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System, as of 2019 there were 16.7 deaths per 100,000 live births, a number that has been increasing since the surveillance began in 1987. Large disparities exist based on race/ethnicity and other factors.