Philanthropist Olivia Walton didn’t get proper postpartum care. Now, she’s investing $100M to halve the U.S. maternal mortality rate in 5 years

Philanthropist Olivia Walton, of the Walmart founding family, has pledged $100 million from her family's fortune to address the maternal health crisis in the United States. Walton founded her nonprofit, Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America, in April, with the goal of reducing the country's maternal mortality rate by half within five years. This mission is deeply personal for Walton, as she experienced difficulties with postpartum care even though she had access to significant resources.

Walton's own challenges with postpartum care became evident when she gave birth to her middle child in Arkansas in 2020. She noticed that she did not receive the necessary postpartum care from facilities in her home state, which she recognized was one of the worst in the country, with a maternal mortality rate that was double the national average. Moreover, she highlighted that for Black and brown women, the mortality rate is even more alarming - three times higher than the national average.

To address this issue, Walton and her husband Tom founded a bipartisan nonprofit campaign to leverage "every tool in the toolbox" to drive change. This includes storytelling, advocacy work, coalition-building, and catalytic grant-making. In the initial phase, they have allocated $10 million to Arkansas and Kansas to improve their maternal health.

The challenges to this noble cause include Medicaid cuts and changes in the way the American Medical Association bills patients, which could worsen the situation in the upcoming year. However, Walton remains hopeful that people across the political spectrum can agree on the importance of healthy families.

Despite the $100 million pledge, Walton acknowledges that it is not sufficient to sustain the progress on its own. She emphasizes the need to bolster the maternal health workforce by increasing the number of midwives and doulas. Additionally, she calls for employers, particularly large self-insured companies, to enhance their pregnancy and postpartum benefits. Walton argues that improving perinatal benefits not only benefits women and mothers but can also lead to cost reductions and better outcomes for businesses.