From 2000 to 2024, an estimated 20,000 women died from maternal mortality causes in the US.
And it’s estimated that 80% of them are preventable.
Imagine if we said their names. All of them.
Every woman lost to pregnancy and childbirth in America.
You’d be speaking her name every day. You’d run out of breath. You’d never stop mourning.
We haven’t stopped mourning. And we won’t stop remembering.
Maternal mortality rates are not just numbers - they represent lives lost and families forever changed.
Dr. Camara Jones - Epidemiologist, Health Equity Advocate
Grief is the price we pay for love.
Queen Elizabeth II
Women are dying because no one is listening.
ProPublica.com - the Lost Mothers Series
She wasn't just a mother lost. She was a person silenced.
Rebecca Smith, CNM, PhD
I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change - I am changing the things I cannot accept.
Angela Davis
Maternal mortality is a preventable tragedy. Our healthcare system must be reformed to provide comprehensive and compassionate care to all expectant mothers.
Joycelyn Elders - Former US Surgeon General
Every time a woman dies in childbirth, a nation's soul fractures.
Unknown
Maternal mortality is a tragedy, and the fact that it disproportionately affects women of color is a moral failure that we must address.
Melinda Gates - Philanthropist
Maternal mortality is not a medical mystery. It's a mirror.
Unknown
Telling her story is an act of resistance.
Unknown
If we do not tell the truth, how will the next woman survive?
Unknown
When the systems fail mothers, they do not die in silence. We are here to speak.
Unknown
We speak their names not only because they are gone, but because they mattered.
Black Lives Matter
Grief is not weakness. Grief is testimony.
Unknown
I'm angry. We should all be angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Sharing tales of those we've lost is how we keep from really losing them.
Mitch Albom - Author
The U.S. is the only developed country where maternal mortality is rising. We cannot accept this as the status quo. Women's lives are worth more than that.
The Center for Reproductive Rights
Women have always been an equal part of the past. We just haven't been a part of history.
Gloria Steinem
The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating.
John Schaar
Injustice in maternal care is not a glitch in the system - it is the system.
Unknown
When we are silent about the death of women, we participate in their erasure.
Unknown
In the U.S., maternal mortality is a scandal that has been ignored for far too long. The stories we’ve uncovered reveal that these deaths are not inevitable—they are preventable.
Nina Martin - Reporter at ProPublica, Co-Creator of 'Lost Mothers'
There is no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its women and children.
Nelson Mandela
The U.S. is the only high-resource country with a rising maternal mortality rate. The statistics are shocking, but complacency is not an option. Take action.
EveryMotherCounts.org
