04/09/2025
The CDC’s Division of Reproductive Health team that focused on emergency preparedness for pregnant and postpartum women and infants was slashed this week. Those staffers were responsible for responding to how pandemics like Covid-19 can impact pregnant women and making sure to include them in their health response plans. The entire Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) team was laid off. That program was developed to identify women and infants at high risk of health problems, with the goal of reducing infant mortality and morbidity.
“We cannot understand factors associated with poor pregnancy outcomes without surveillance like PRAMs,” Taylor says. The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate of all high-income countries, and experts fear that reducing research on prevention will make things even worse. “If we don’t understand those factors, U.S. maternal morbidity and mortality will continue to worsen. This means more women will die.”
“Black women in America are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women, we know this in large part because of the data collected and analyzed by the CDC,” says Jennifer Driver, who runs the reproductive rights council at the State Innovation Exchange.
Among the employees who were cut were researchers who studied contraception, abortion, and fertility. For example, staffers would investigate success rates of IVF across clinics nationwide. The CDC is one of the only federal agencies tracking success rates and overseeing fertility clinics. The IVF cuts were especially ironic, considering Trump recently declared himself the “fertilization president’ at a Women’s History Month event at the White House on March 26 when talking about the executive order he signed pledging to expand access to fertility treatment.
And for people who don’t want to get pregnant, the CDC cuts also pose challenges. In a state like Louisiana, where Freehill practices and abortion is banned, contraception is more important than ever. But, as Rolling Stone reported this week, the team that worked on the contraception guidelines at the CDC was also shuttered.
The guidelines, which provide recommendations for health care providers for safe use of contraception, are used as a standard of care by OB-GYNs, midwives, and primary care doctors. Freehill says she often checks them when patients who have specific medical conditions and are on medication come in and want to know which birth control option is safest and most effective for them. She is also worried about the gutting of the FDA, which releases guidelines on how many years IUDs can be effective, something that can be constantly updated with new research and data.
CDC staffers and medical experts sound the alarm on how the gutting of the federal health agencies will put women’s lives at risk
