Interdisciplinary Collaborative Receives $4 Million Cooperative Agreement from the CDC to Improve Postpartum Care In and Beyond the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

New Funding Supports “Care for NICU Families” Research and Program

Chapel Hill, NC, October 2023 – The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Department of Pediatrics and Collaborative for Maternal and Infant Health, along with Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere, the University of California San Francisco’s (UCSF) School of Nursing and subject matter collaborative partners, have received a $4 million Cooperative Agreement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to Advance Best Practices to Improve Postpartum Care In and Beyond the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (“Care for NICU Families”).

Collaborative partners include Mighty Little Giants, Breast Friends Lactation and Support Services, the 4th Trimester Project, Bellamy Management Consultants, Narrative Nation, the National Institute for Children’s Health Quality, the National Perinatal Association, Postpartum Support International, the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses, Sabia Wade, and Heather Burris.

The team will build a national partnership guided by community and diverse lived experience voices to develop a set of Best Practices for Postpartum NICU Care along with co-created tools and strategies to support model care. They will share what they learn across NICUs, professional and community networks nationwide, and provide technical assistance to groups who are ready to make change. This will lead to increased awareness and use of effective data-informed clinical care and public health resources and interventions, as well as increased capacity to implement clinical and public health approaches to improve outcomes for postpartum people.

Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI) Dr. Ifeyinwa Asiodu highlights that “The long-term goal of this important project is to eliminate perinatal health disparities and improve postpartum health and wellbeing during NICU stays through the transition to home. Continuity of care, including addressing the physical and mental health needs of the postpartum person and family, is critical to improving care for NICU families.“ 

The United States has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality and morbidity among wealthy countries (32.9 deaths per 100,000 birth) with unacceptable inequities due to historic and structural racism: Black mothers experience a rate of maternal mortality 2.6 times higher than White mothers. “We know from previous research that mothers with infants in a NICU are more likely to have experienced a birth-related trauma, have depression/anxiety, lack access to basic care, have a chronic health condition, experienced a cesarean birth, and/or a blood transfusion, than mothers whose infants do not have a NICU stay,” Co-PI Dr. Sarah Verbiest underscored.

“NICUs are designed to address infant health, and they often do not accommodate the needs of postpartum people who are recovering from childbirth,” states Co-PI Dr. Wayne Price. NICU families describe challenges with basic practical needs, such as NICU visitor restrooms without menstrual products, going without meals to avoid leaving the infant’s bedside, and not taking pain medication / pulling over on the side of the road to sleep because there was no place to rest while visiting the NICU. He furthers, “’Care for NICU Families’ will increase awareness, resources, interventions, and capacity to make changes for NICU families on their postpartum journeys.”

Co-PI Dr. Kimarie Bugg concludes, “The ‘Care for NICU Families’ team believes that better care for NICU postpartum parents will lead to improvements in outcomes for mothers and their babies by reducing maternal mortality and morbidity, increasing infant access to human milk, addressing maternal mental health and trauma, and providing NICU and community-based resources and social supports.”

You can learn more about the “Care for NICU Families” work at https://newmomhealth.com/about-care-for-nicu-families/.