These Maine hospitals ‘AIM’ to address maternal hypertension
The birthing centers at Maine’s Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center, Inland Hospital and Mercy Hospital in 2023 received recognition at the state’s Perinatal Quality Collaborative conference for their work addressing maternal hypertension.
The previous year, all three hospitals joined the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM), a national initiative focused on making childbirth safer, improving maternal health outcomes and saving lives. Several other Northern Light Health hospitals have since joined AIM.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, high blood pressure occurs in 1 of every 12 to 17 pregnancies among U.S. women ages 20 to 44. Black women are more than twice as likely as white women to have high blood pressure during their childbearing years.
High blood pressure can put the mother and baby at risk for problems during the pregnancy as well as during and after delivery. But appropriate treatment and good blood pressure control can help women and their babies stay healthy.
The AIM maternal hypertension initiative provides algorithms and evidence-based techniques to improve maternal health outcomes in hypertension. Metrics to help sustain the outcomes include timely treatment of hypertensive blood pressures, participation in team-based drills and continuing education, which the teams at Northern Light Health are committed to doing.