About Corinne McSpedon, senior editor

AJN senior editor

Maternal Health: Funding Cuts Amid an Ongoing Crisis

Photo © Shutterstock

The United States continues to grapple with a maternal health crisis characterized by significant racial and ethnic disparities in morbidity and mortality. Maternal mortality rates here are at least double (and sometimes triple) those of most other high-income countries, according to a 2024 Commonwealth Fund report. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 80% of U.S. maternal deaths are preventable.

Recent data show some improvement in mortality and morbidity but persistent disparities in who is at greatest risk. Pregnancy-related deaths in 2023 decreased to 18.6 deaths per 100,000 live births from a rate of 22.3 the year before, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Yet the maternal mortality rate for Black women and American Indian and Alaska Native women continues to be more than three times that of White women.

Federal changes threaten efforts to improve care and disparities 

As nurses and other maternal health providers work to address the complex underlying causes of these disparities, their efforts have been challenged in recent months by rapid and unprecedented federal funding and infrastructure cuts. The Trump administration has suspended Title X family planning and preventive health services funding, initiated widespread layoffs of federal health […]

2025-05-14T09:36:15-04:00May 14th, 2025|health care policy, Nursing, Public health, women's health|0 Comments
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School Nurses Teaching Lifesaving Skills to Children

A scary moment in the home.

One weekend morning, my then-six-year-old son ran into the kitchen holding a half-eaten piece of fruit and looking panicked. He and his brothers had just finished eating breakfast before rushing off to play a game in the next room. Only a faint wheeze emerged when my son tried to breathe. He was choking.

Years earlier, my husband and I had taken a cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and first aid class for new parents taught by paramedics and nurses at our local community center. We immediately used techniques we’d practiced in that class to successfully dislodge the food, and our son recovered fully. That long-ago instruction had not only given us the knowledge needed to clear our son’s airway but also the confidence to do so calmly during a frightening moment.

A 4th-grader learns proper technique for chest compressions and how to use an AED. Photo by Dulce Rodriguez.

Collaborating with the community to empower students.

In our May issue In Our Community column, nurses in the Klein Independent School District in Harris County, Texas, describe how they have been instilling this combination of lifesaving […]

2022-09-01T08:29:18-04:00September 1st, 2022|Nursing, Public health, school nurses|0 Comments
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What Is Long COVID?

There are still many unknowns, but the need for comprehensive care is clear.

“There are days I don’t have any issues. Then I have terrible palpitations, or I’m short of breath when I walk. I think there’ll be long-term effects, I’m just not 100% sure what they’ll be.”

This is how one nurse with long COVID describes her symptoms—more than two years after initially contracting the virus—and the uncertainty that goes along with it. Her experience is highlighted in the July AJN Reports, “Long COVID: What We Know Now.”

Few definitive answers.

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

Each wave of COVID infections results in more people not fully recovering from the acute illness. Instead, they experience a range of ongoing and new symptoms that vary in severity and duration.

Whether their symptoms are called long COVID, postacute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2, or post-COVID conditions, the reality is the same: there are few definitive answers about long COVID’s risk factors, causes, and effects.

Multidisciplinary care.

What is known, as the article discusses, is that it’s beneficial for patients to access a post-COVID care program in which a multidisciplinary team provides ongoing clinical evaluation, individualized treatment, and support services.

“The best thing you can do for a patient is get them involved […]

2022-07-20T10:11:25-04:00July 20th, 2022|Nursing|0 Comments
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A Long History of Abortion

Looking to the past for context and perspective as the U.S. abortion care landscape changes dramatically.

The Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade ended women’s nationwide legal right to abortion after nearly 50 years.

Photo by Ian Hutchinson on Unsplash

Several states with so-called trigger laws banning abortion moved to implement these immediately. Although some of these laws have since been challenged in court, within a few months it’s expected that women living in about half the states will have very limited or no access to abortion care. Most of these laws—predominantly in the Midwest, South, and Plains states—make no exception for rape or to safeguard a woman’s health, until she is at risk of death.

Limiting health care access amid rising maternal mortality rates.

These restrictions on women’s health care occur while the U.S. continues to have a maternal mortality rate much higher than in other developed nations. According to the latest statistics from the CDC, this rate is rising, and health disparities persist: Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes compared with White women.

Women who have historically been most marginalized will be disproportionately affected by the Supreme Court’s decision, which is expected to […]

2022-07-11T06:31:54-04:00July 11th, 2022|Public health, women's health|0 Comments
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Taking Stock of the Nursing Profession as the Pandemic Weakens Its Hold

Projected nursing shortages by 2026, by state. Click image to expand.

Exhaustion and burnout. Insufficient workplace protections. The growth of contract nursing. A lack of minimum staffing ratios.

These and other issues have been important nursing topics since long before the pandemic. But as the essential work of nurses has come under a brighter spotlight during the COVID crisis, headlines and news stories have been increasingly highlighting these important topics, providing wider recognition of nurses’ experiences and concerns.

In just the past week, a sampling of headlines from across the country show how nursing workforce issues are taking center stage, from insufficient workplace protections in California to state legislatures considering capping travel nurses’ pay in Missouri to workforce shortages in Pennsylvania to unsafe working conditions in Maine.

Liz Seegert explores where the profession stands as the country enters the third year of the COVID pandemic in the February AJN Reports, “The Current State of Nursing.” She notes the results of recent surveys, including one by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses that looked at how the pandemic has affected nursing.

“Exhaustion, frustration, anger, burnout, depression, and fear for their own and […]

2022-03-07T09:52:15-05:00March 7th, 2022|Nursing|0 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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