Federal funding for research to prevent maternal deaths in Va., nationwide set to expire Sept. 30

Seven years ago, Congress’ Preventing Maternal Deaths Act was signed into law by President Donald Trump — but the funding it provides to states to address maternal health disparities is set to expire at the end of this month. This year, its renewal was left out of Trump’s budget proposal. 

While competing priorities are at play as Congress deliberates continuing resolutions to avoid a government shutdown by Oct. 1., the funding has bolstered data collection that informs policies to help prevent pregnancy-related deaths in Virginia and nationwide. 

Dubbed the Enhancing Reviews and Surveillance to Eliminate Maternal Mortality, or ERASE MM, nearly $90 million has gone towards state committees around the country that review maternal deaths and analyze the causes. The committees’ findings have helped spur protocols aimed at preventing hemorrhage, sepsis or suicide. 

Virginia’s Maternal Mortality Review Team, for instance, collects data and the Virginia Department of Health also posts a data dashboard.

The data collection is in line with a broader effort to address maternal health disparities and underlying causes in maternal mortality. Data shows that deaths have decreased in recent years while collected data has also informed state policies, such as Virginia’s “Momnibus” packages that were signed into law this year.  Those measures enabled Medicaid reimbursement rates for midwives and pilot programs for remote monitoring for hypertension.

Not every proposal prevailed, such as a mutli-year effort to require unconscious bias training for license renewals — a measure to target one facet of why Black women are more likely to die in childbirth, but others have addressed support for maternal health workforces and Medicaid enrollment timelines for pregnant people. 

Del. Candi Mundon King, D-Prince William, said lawmakers will reintroduce failed or vetoed legislation again next year. She’s particularly hopeful about the unconscious bias bill, as it has consistently had bipartisan patrons. She also hopes a bill that would support businesses providing childcare to workers can pass. 

“You can’t talk about moms without talking about babies,” she said. 

Though Youngkin and some Republicans have noted support for addressing maternal health disparities and improving outcomes, Democrats have largely led on the issue. In an interview with The Mercury, Mundon King took a moment to stump for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger, who she believes will get the other Momnibus bills across the finish line. 

Be it Spanberger, or Republican nominee Winsome Earle-Sears, either woman will be responsible for signing off on the state’s next budget — one that will likely need to address several federal funding losses. 

Not extending the ERASE MM program in Trump’s budget plans is what U.S. Rep. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, called part of a larger push to “shrink the federal government willy nilly.” 

Throughout the summer she has cautioned that federal funding cuts will put more burden on states, and said some states will forgo certain services altogether. 

“Rather than looking at what are the important problems to solve,” she said, the cuts have culminated in a lot of health care infrastructure taking hits or bracing for them.

McClellan and Democratic state lawmakers have said throughout the spring and the summer the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is expected to negatively affect the public health landscape with its changes to hospital funding mechanisms and Medicaid. So far, three clinics have closed in Virginia — citing the act as part of the reason — while hospital administrators have spoken out as well. 

On maternal health specifically, McClellan said letting ERASE MM lapse essentially erases the good intentions Republicans in Congress and the president have espoused with regards to both maternal health and the “Make America Healthy Again” movement.  

She juxtaposed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. MAHA initiatives against the different federal funding cuts to public health like the OBBBA, the tax credits that help people purchase health insurance which have yet to be renewed, and funding cuts to the National Institutes of Health. 

“It’s just a huge disconnect that I don’t think they see,” she said. 

Previous efforts to extend the ERASE MM funding have been unsuccessful — like a stopgap funding measure in December 2024 that failed with Republican opposition. The program was also missing from Trump’s budget proposals for next year. Legislation to extend the program introduced this year has not advanced so far. As Congress stares down a potential government shutdown before Oct. 1, it may not be included yet again. 

With the 2026 fiscal year beginning on that date, Congress needs to have resolved its appropriations bills or agree on a continuing resolution in the interim. Such resolutions have become par for the course in recent years for the nation’s legislative body. 

If McClellan and other federal lawmakers can’t extend the program in its current form this year, she plans to “absolutely” work on reauthorization in the future. 

North Carolina Central University nursing department chair Yolanda VanRiel is also watching closely. As a nursing professor, she helps oversee the education of future health care workers. She noted how programs like ERASE MM are an example of federal funding that helps states across the country.

“Maternal health is one of the most urgent equity issues of our time,” she said. “We know that solutions like community-based programs, culturally responsive care (and) consistent monitoring works, but we need the will to sustain them.” 

North Carolina is among the states to have maternal health data dashboards that help inform policy and has also its own Momnibus package in the works, but it has not passed yet. 

“Momnibus (legislation) shows what is possible when states lead boldly, but states cannot do this alone,” VanRiel said. “Federal and state partnerships ground the belief that every mother’s life matters.” 

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com.