This bill reauthorizes and increases funding for efforts to prevent maternal deaths by updating review committees and mandating the annual sharing of best practices.
Earl "Buddy" Carter
Representative
GA-1
The Preventing Maternal Deaths Reauthorization Act of 2025 aims to reduce maternal mortality by strengthening Maternal Mortality Review Committees with new expertise requirements and improved data collection. This bill mandates the annual sharing of updated best practices for preventing maternal deaths and serious illness across the healthcare system. Furthermore, it significantly increases and extends federal funding for these critical maternal health initiatives through fiscal year 2029.
Maternal Health Funding Jumps to $100M Annually to Fight Pregnancy Deaths, Improve Data Quality
The Preventing Maternal Deaths Reauthorization Act of 2025 is basically a major upgrade and funding boost for the ongoing effort to stop mothers from dying during or shortly after childbirth. This legislation doesn't just renew the program; it significantly increases the authorized funding from the previous $58 million to $100 million annually for five years, running from 2025 through 2029. Think of it as putting serious money behind a critical public health issue.
The Data Cleanup Crew Gets a New Mandate
One of the biggest hurdles in solving the maternal mortality crisis is getting accurate data. This bill takes aim at that problem by strengthening the Maternal Mortality Review Committees (MMRCs)—the groups that investigate every maternal death. The update requires these committees to now include people with expertise in clinical specialties (SEC. 2), ensuring that the reviews aren't just administrative but medically informed. Crucially, the bill clarifies that when these committees review cases, they must use information “if available,” tightening up the previous vague language and pushing for better data utilization.
This data push goes straight to the source: the MMRCs are now specifically tasked with working with death certifiers—the folks who fill out death certificates—to improve the quality of those reports, including updating the cause-of-death information when necessary (SEC. 2). For the average person, this means that the data driving state and federal prevention efforts should become much more reliable, leading to smarter policy and better care. For the death certifiers, however, this means a new administrative requirement to collaborate and potentially revisit records, which adds to their workload.
Annual Best Practices for Better Care
The bill also institutionalizes the sharing of knowledge. It mandates that the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), working through the CDC and HRSA, must create and share the best ways to prevent maternal deaths and severe complications (SEC. 2). This isn't a one-and-done report; these recommendations must be updated and sent out at least once every fiscal year to hospitals, state professional groups, and perinatal quality collaboratives.
What does this mean on the ground? If you’re expecting a child, this provision aims to ensure your hospital and care team are constantly receiving the latest, evidence-based guidelines on how to handle complications. For healthcare providers, it means a guaranteed annual flow of updated clinical information, helping close the gap between what is learned in committee rooms and what happens in delivery rooms across the country. By boosting the funding and demanding better data and clearer communication, this reauthorization aims to transform the fight against maternal mortality from a patchwork effort into a coordinated, well-funded national priority.