{"id":4867,"date":"2026-07-30T10:05:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T10:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=4867"},"modified":"2026-07-30T10:05:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T10:05:20","slug":"what-are-maternal-health-inequalities-and-how-are-we-stopping-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=4867","title":{"rendered":"What are maternal health inequalities, and how are we stopping them?"},"content":{"rendered":"

BackWhat are maternal health<\/a> inequalities, and how are we stopping them?
\n30 July 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

| By: Newcastle University
\n | 3 min read<\/p>\n

This is a pivotal moment for maternity services, with growing national focus on improving safety, reducing inequalities, and ensuring women receive high-quality, personalised care throughout pregnancy and beyond. So, what are we doing to help?<\/h2>\n

Contents:<\/h2>\n

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What are maternity health inequalities?<\/h2>\n

Good health and wellbeing enable us to live happy, fulfilling lives and free us up to achieve our potential. But we don\u2019t all have the same opportunities to live healthy lives. There are stark health inequalities linked to where we live, the circumstances we grow up in, our ethnicity, and our disability status<\/p>\n

While pregnancy and birth are very safe in the UK, some groups of women are more likely to have a worse experience than others<\/p>\n

Maternity health inequalities refer to the unfair, avoidable, and systematic differences in maternal health outcomes, healthcare experiences, and access to services among different demographic groups<\/p>\n

Discrimination and racism are shown to seriously affect health, through stress and by creating barriers to employment, housing, and health care. For instance, data shows that mothers from Black, Asian, and mixed ethnic backgrounds face significantly higher risks during and after pregnancy<\/p>\n

The data also show the same risks for women living in deprived areas. Deprivation is when people and households lack the ability to attain the essential reble income, warm housing, education and health care<\/p>\n

Deprivation is a major driver of health inequalities, because people in poorer areas might be unable to afford basic necessities, face higher rates of chronic illness, shorter life expectancy, and more years living in poor health. It also limits people\u2019s access to health care and exposes individuals to risk factors like poor housing, food insecurity and stress, creating a cycle of disadvantage<\/p>\n

These inequalities manifest across several well-documented areas, such as mortality rates, birth complications, and disparities across quality of care and experience. For example, research shows that mothers from ethnic minority groups are more likely to report not being listened to by healthcare professionals, facing microaggressions, or not having their pain taken seriously<\/p>\n

But making the long-lasting change needed to address health and social inequalities can\u2019t be done in isolation. No single organisation or profession can do it on their own. It must be a group effort, bringing together experts and patient groups from across the UK to understand how such inequalities vary by region and community, before determining a course of action to change things for the better.<\/p>\n

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The five-year project set to change things<\/h2>\n

Newcastle University is co-leading a \u00a350 million national initiative to tackle maternal health inequalities to improve outcomes for women, babies and families across the UK<\/p>\n

Funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), this five-year project brings together the NIHR Maternity Disparities Consortium \u2013 a group of expert clinicians and researchers from nine carefully-selected universities and communities, all dedicated to addressing urgent gaps in maternal care and levelling health inequalities<\/p>\n

While the term \u2018inequalities\u2019 refers to the objective, measurable difference in the distribution of opportunities and outcomes between individuals or groups, using the term \u2018disparities\u2019 reflects the consortium\u2019s focus on seeing these as the result of unjust systemic barriers and discrimination<\/p>\n

The consortium members span most regions of the UK, ensuring a wide perspective on tackling maternity inequalities. Each member then has its own relationships with its local charities, community groups, maternity services, public health<\/a> teams and health services, life science industry partners, and patient groups<\/p>\n

With growing national attention on ensuring women receive fair and personalised care through pregnancy and beyond, the formation of this consortium comes at an important time<\/p>\n

This is the moment when ambition must be matched by delivery and impact<\/p>\n

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Real impact across maternity disparities<\/h2>\n

Led by our international experts across maternal and child health, population health, and health inequalities, Newcastle University will play a central role through its leadership in shaping the programme<\/p>\n

The consortium will focus on improving and levelling care throughout the entire reproductive cycle, from pregnancy through to birth and early recovery. It also recognises the vital importance of the time before and between pregnancies, as well as the post-natal period, and will strengthen the support and transitions into longer-term family<\/a> care<\/p>\n

Researchers will work closely with NHS partners and local communities to ensure that the work reflects real experiences in patient groups. The consortium will assess what works, for whom, and in what contexts, so that the work results in real, practical changes in care for the women, babies and families who need them most<\/p>\n

The consortium\u2019s work will target three different root causes of maternity health inequalities:<\/p>\n