About Us
Why MATRIX CoLAB?
We are the Maternity in Crisis Co-Laboratory
Recent COVID-19 declines in maternal, fetal, and infant morbidity and mortality achievements have shown the global fragility of maternal health care. We are a multidisciplinary group of researchers, providers, social workers, community members, and patients working together to reduce and eliminate disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes among racial and ethnic minority groups, people with lower socioeconomic status, underserved rural communities, sexual and gender minority groups, immigrants, and people with disabilities. We are dedicated to working with people at the intersection of two or more of these identities.
Maternal health is in crisis.
In the U.S., the wealthiest Black birthing parents have worse outcomes than the poorest White birthing parents. The same is true for their babies (whether stillbirth or livebirth).
Across the world, the poorest people are far worse off in their maternal and newborn morbidity and mortality outcomes than richer ones.
Whether it is the effect of poverty, which leads to intersecting social needs, or timely access to high quality obstetric and newborn care, there is no reason for pregnant and birthing people and their newborns to be experiencing severe illness or dying from preventable causes.
Until now, the scale of these inequities was understood in broad strokes, but we are digging deep and trying to understand when, where, and to whom harm occurs, and what we can and should do about it.
The crisis facing pregnant and birthing people and in turn their newborns will need to be addressed along multiple lines of inequality—this is the work of our lab.
