North Carolina Maternal Health Innovation Program
The North Carolina (NC) Maternal Health Innovation (MHI) Program maintains and builds on state-level initiatives focused on expanding access to comprehensive care, enhancing state maternal health data capacity, and implementing innovative interventions to improve outcomes for populations disproportionately impacted by maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity (SMM).
The NC MHI Program consists of two components to implement state-level initiatives. The components are Perinatal Nurse Champions and Community Champions.
The Perinatal Nurse Champions (PNC) are a team of nurses who each cover one of the six Perinatal Care Regions across North Carolina. The PNCs work with providers and health systems in their respective perinatal care regions to lead the implementation of selected Maternal Mortality Review Committee recommendations aimed at reducing maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity.
Community Champions lead community engagement efforts and training to ensure that people with lived experience are equal partners in community-level work to improve maternal health outcomes. Their engagement also ensures that efforts to enhance maternal health are not solely centered at health care institutions. The Community Champions collaborate with local initiatives, including Healthy Beginnings, Baby Love Plus, Southeast Healthy Start, and Improving Community Outcomes for Maternal and Child Health programs, to improve outcomes for populations disproportionately impacted by maternal mortality and SMM.
For more information about the MHI program and initiatives, please contact Monet Kees at monet.kees@dhhs.nc.gov
This is a hospital-based initiative to increase awareness and improve recognition of post-birth warning signs. The PNCs work with hospitals and first responders within their region to implement the initiative. After women in the participating hospital give birth, they are educated about post-birth warning signs and receive a silicone bracelet to wear between 6 to 8 weeks in the postpartum period. By focusing on postpartum care, the initiative ensures that new mothers receive the comprehensive support and timely care they need in this critical period.
I Gave Birth Initiative
The PNCs adapted the Respectful Maternity Care approach created by the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nursing’s (AWHONN) to establish a framework that facilitates the provision of respectful care to all people receiving prenatal, antepartum, or postpartum care. This initiative equips health care team members with skills that promote patient-centered care based on dignity, autonomy, respect, and shared decision-making and identify strategies that facilitate the likelihood that people will experience respectful care at every patient-provider interaction.
Respectful Care
The Postpartum CoP is a shared learning opportunity for NC local health departments that are seeking to improve the quality of the postpartum visit as well as the number of women who complete their postpartum visit. The aim of Postpartum CoP is to provide guidance and actionable strategies to address barriers in postpartum care and support quality improvement initiatives.
Postpartum Community of Practice (CoP)
Advance Maternal Health Initiatives with leadership from the NC Institute of Medicine, and in collaboration with the Perinatal Health Equity Collective to assure access to high quality and equitable health services to optimize health and wellbeing for North Carolinians of reproductive age.
Maternal Health Workgroup
The Perinatal Nurse Champions (PNCs) bring nurse leaders together to connect, collaborate, and share ideas across birth facilities in each perinatal care region while also providing hands-on technical support on challenges, updates, and best practices in their region.
Perinatal Nurse Leaders Collaborative