COVID-19 has dealt out a double dose of woe for global maternal health. According to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the pandemic saw an increase in maternal deaths and an exacerbation of racial disparities driving this overall morbidity. In addition, childbearing people experienced significant anxiety and depression. 

“The effects of climate change can begin in the womb,” said Sarah Barnes, the Project Director of the Maternal Health Initiative at the Wilson Center at a recent event on the impact of climate change on maternal and newborn health outcomes, hosted by the Wilson Center and UNFPA. It is a connection that “[makes] it imperative that climate change and maternal and newborn health leaders work together to tackle climate change and improve maternal and newborn health outcomes, globally.”

On November 15, the world population is projected to reach 8 billion people. As we approach that milestone, there’s no denying that our rapidly growing human population also places extraordinary pressure on the environment. The human population has doubled in the last 50 years, while wildlife populations have been cut in half.

For many people, stillbirth— the occurrence of a fetal death at 20+ week’s gestation—is a concept. A statistic. Each year, at least 23,000 stillbirths occur in the United States. It occurs in one out of every 160 pregnancies. Yet when these numbers become a reality in your own life, they take on a new meaning.

Of COVID-19’s many lessons, one is most critical to our collective next steps:

Business as usual in global health is no longer possible.

The pandemic exposed weaknesses in health systems across the world, and particularly in the delivery of equitable, high-quality reproductive, maternal, newborn, adolescent, and child health (RMNCAH) services. It also reinforced that effectively addressing these challenges requires rapid, responsive approaches driven and owned by countries and local institutions.

While the world’s population now approaches 8 billion people, global fertility rates have been declining for decades. The overall drivers of this decline include increased access to contraception and reproductive health care, an increase in women seeking higher education, women’s empowerment in the workforce, lower rates of child mortality globally, increased cost of raising children, and overall greater gender equality.

“Half. This is the proportion of all pregnancies that are unintended. That is 121 million pregnancies every year,” said Sarah Craven, Director of the Washington D.C. Office at UNFPA during a recent U.S. launch event for the 2022 UNFPA State of World Population (SWOP) report. “For these women, the most life altering reproductive choice, whether to become pregnant or not, is no choice at all. This is an unseen crisis unfolding right before our eyes.”