Walton-Backed Campaign Pledges $100M to Halve US Maternal Deaths by 2031

A bipartisan campaign founded by philanthropists Olivia and Tom Walton has committed $100 million over five years to make childbirth safer in the United States, with the goal of halving the country's maternal mortality rate by 2031.

Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America announced the pledge on Thursday. The initiative arrives as the most recent federal figures show maternal deaths rising: 688 people died during pregnancy or shortly after giving birth in 2024, and the maternal mortality rate climbed to 19 deaths per 100,000 live births from 18.6 a year earlier. The United States records one of the highest maternal mortality rates among wealthy nations.

Olivia Walton described the problem as both severe and worsening, but said she sees broad cross-party agreement on the need to act. She said part of the campaign's role is to build an information effort that helps surface that political will.

A central pillar of the initiative is improving how maternal deaths are counted and reported. Walton noted that the most recent state-level data dates to 2022, with annual totals relying on provisional figures through 2024. "You can't fix what you can't measure," she said. The Waltons' nonprofit Heartland Forward partnered with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in May on a project called the Perinatal Improvement Collaborative, which gathers maternal and infant health outcome data from 220 hospitals nationwide.

Dr. Neel Shah, president of Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America, said maternal mortality is "eminently solvable" and that the main obstacle is not a shortage of knowledge but a failure to apply it. He said the campaign will work to expand maternal health access in rural areas, train midwives, broaden postpartum care and help states adopt strategies with a proven record. He cited California, which has cut its maternal mortality rate by half through combined strategies and investment, and New Jersey, once ranked 47th among states, which has improved outcomes by targeting the cities with the greatest need.

Walton said states hold the primary levers for changing maternal and infant care, partly because Medicaid pays for roughly 40% of births. She said the campaign can draw on approaches that have worked in blue, red and purple states alike. The $100 million commitment is intended to encourage state governments to match the nonprofit's spending, with Walton hoping corporations and other funders will also contribute. She described taking on early risk as a sound use of philanthropic capital, with the aim of proving what works so that state funding can eventually sustain it.

The state-level focus does not rule out federal efforts. The campaign is backing bipartisan congressional legislation, including the Rural Obstetrics Readiness Act and the NIH IMPROVE Act, which would widen access to maternal care.

Republican Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama said it is unacceptable that maternal mortality rates are moving in the wrong direction, and called for public and private sectors to work together to reverse the trend. Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey said poor maternal health outcomes carry economic costs as well, which he estimated at $165 billion a year.

Walton said the issue is personal. A mother of three children born in the past eight years, she lives in Arkansas, which she said has the worst maternal mortality in the country. She framed the cause in broader terms: healthy mothers lead to healthy families, communities and, ultimately, a healthy economy.