As a nurse midwife, I've worked in a lot of different settings. However, since most of what I do is very siloed – working closely with pregnant women as they prepare to give birth – thinking about how to make broad changes can be really difficult. So, for me, the interdisciplinary aspect of this committee is incredibly exciting.

I am a cardiologist and a professor of maternal/fetal medicine and cardiology. I feel very fortunate to be part of the maternal mortality review committee. Through maternal mortality reviews, we’ve learned that cardiovascular and coronary conditions are a leading cause of maternal deaths in the U.S. I volunteer my time on the committee because I am passionate about and believe in the power of education and awareness.

I am an anesthesiologist. I often see women as they’re preparing to give birth when I administer epidurals or other pain control meds; my connection with patients in that moment is incredibly intimate. I am passionate about keeping these women healthy and strong so that they can be around to experience motherhood after they’ve gone through pregnancy and labor. If I have the ability to stop even one woman from becoming a maternal mortality statistic, I consider my work on this committee to be a success.

I am a maternal fetal medicine specialist, and I am the chair of this maternal mortality review committee. I am also the medical director of our regional perinatal center. I have seen and taken care of many critically ill women and, unfortunately, presided over too many maternal deaths. I volunteer my time on the committee because I hope we can really begin to address maternal mortality on a population level.

As the coordinator of the committee, I schedule the meetings, prepare the materials, and I sometimes present cases, if requested by the committee chair. This can be a lot of work, but the role is important because I believe we can prevent maternal mortality. And with each committee meeting, I become more and more convinced that we will!

I am a nurse abstractor. I am responsible for reviewing all of the medical and social records for the committee review, and entering all relevant data into the Maternal Mortality Review Information Application system, or MMRIA. I volunteer my time to this process because ever since I became aware of the problem of maternal mortality, I just haven’t been able to let it go. The work we do as a committee is overwhelming and sometimes you don't even know if you're making progress, but I always try to keep in the back of my mind that if we can save one life, we’ve done a whole lot.

My background is as a lawyer and a nurse. Now, as a hospital administrator, I truly see the effects of maternal mortality from all sides - the impact to the family, the impact to the staff, and the legal ramifications for the hospital. I really hope we can get to a point where maternal mortality is a thing of the past. That’s why I volunteer my time.

As a patient advocate, I work with mothers and their children to help them find the resources and support they need. The women I work with are at high risk for catastrophic outcomes of maternal mortality, so I see my participation in the committee as an extraordinary opportunity to be in a room with a lot of smart people from different disciplines who care a lot and really want to look at how we can prevent maternal mortality. One of the highlights of my career is being part of this review committee team.

I am a psychiatrist and the director of the Women's Mental Health Program at a local university. Unfortunately, in the United States, mental health is often treated as an afterthought. I’m committed to doing whatever I can to improve the way we view and treat mental health. A lot of women struggle silently both during and after their pregnancies. Maternal mortality review committees provide the opportunity to look not only at the medical factors contributing to a woman’s death, but at the social and emotional factors that may have contributed as well. When we look through that social and emotional lens, we can increase linkages to care and enhance prevention efforts.

I am a maternal and child health epidemiologist. I take the findings from the review committee back to the health department and make sure that what we learn through these maternal mortality reviews is integrated into regular reports and the other programming we're doing. This is powerful data that begins to tell a story both about maternal health in our area and about how to prevent maternal deaths.

I am the executive director of a nonprofit organization that serves children and families. Our organization coordinates the maternal mortality review process for our state and hosts the maternal mortality review committee meetings. I try to link what is seen in the hospital to what we see in the community so that both sides can understand how incredibly important a woman's life is, not only to her and her family, but to the community at large.

I am a forensic pathologist and chief medical examiner. Since my involvement starts at the end of life, people often wonder what a pathologist can contribute to the prevention of maternal mortality. As pathologists, we bring valuable knowledge about death from a public health perspective. Finding and documenting the exact cause of death can help reduce mortality from similar causes among mothers and other women of reproductive age. The review committee helps translate my findings into prevention opportunities. It’s something I’m extremely passionate about, and I’m glad that I can truly make a difference.

I'm a medical director at the health department. Serving on a committee is some of the most rewarding work I’ve ever done. We are dedicated to reducing morbidity and mortality among women of childbearing age and the way we do that without becoming overwhelmed by the problem is to look at the causes and contributing factors of pregnancy-associated deaths.