A group of Michigan’s top maternal health doctors asked themselves a big question: what measures would work best to reduce the state’s maternal and infant mortality rate?
Their answer: a new program that will be open to all pregnant people in Michigan. It’s called Synergy Of Scholars for Maternal and Infant Health Equity, or “SOS Maternity.”
Doctor Sonia Hassan helped spearhead it. She’s associate vice president of Wayne State University’s Department of Maternal-Fetal Medicine.
“Unanimously, everyone wanted to attack the two big things in our world, which is preterm birth and pre-eclampsia (high blood pressure),” Hassan said. “And so from that came the discussion of, how do we do that? How do we write this protocol in bundles together? And then [we] looked into the best interventions and the best evidence-based things that we knew.”
Hassan said the program will provide what she calls “bundles of care” across many of the state’s health care providers. Those will be standardized interventions shown to best identify and treat the top risk factors, “so that we are optimizing people getting the best care consistently for every single patient.”
In 2023, the March of Dimes gave Michigan a D+ grade when it comes to preterm births. That rate is even higher in the city of Detroit, with a 14.6% rate and an F grade. In Michigan and nationwide, both infant and maternal mortality are significantly higher among Black women than other races.
“We created this with the leading medical experts in the field, to really just ensure that the most advanced medical care is available to every pregnant mom in Michigan,” said Hassan.
But Hassan said SOS Maternity will also look to tackle structural barriers to care — like a lack of transportation. “That is the leading cause of women not able to come to the hospital or to the clinic for their visits. It's a real struggle for a lot of people,” she said. “So we will we will offer that to everyone.”
Hassan says the program will also give each participant an individual “patient navigator” to help manage all aspects of their care.
The program is free and open to all in Michigan. It does require enrollment; more details will be available after a kickoff event in Detroit on Monday.
